How did Barack Obama become America’s first black president?

He pleased the “elites,” according to Clarence Thomas, the second African-American ever to be appointed to the Supreme Court.

Speaking about his life at Pittsburgh’s Duquesne University in April, Thomas explained that he always thought there would be a black president in his lifetime. “The thing I always knew is that it would have to be a black president who was approved by the elites and the media because anybody that they didn’t agree with, they would take apart,” he added.

This is a perfect example of how Thomas buys completely into the right-wing worldview that pits conservatives against the media. In this worldview, the media is all liberal — except Fox News and talk radio — and it destroys black conservatives who aren’t liberal.

“You pick your person,” he said. “Any black person who says something that is not the prescribed things that they expect from a black person will be picked apart.”

Thomas obviously feels that he was vilified by the media with the accusations of sexual harassment that enveloped his confirmation hearings. He likely was referencing Dr. Ben Carson — an African-American surgeon who emerged into conservative politics recently. Carson canceled his speech at a recent Johns Hopkins University medical school commencement after he made comments that seemed to equate same-sex marriage with bestiality and pedophilia — a position the “elites” didn’t seem to like, apparently.

Herman Cain was a frontrunner in the 2012 GOP presidential primary when allegations of affairs and sexual harassment of former employees forced him to drop out of the race.

Despite Thomas’ Fox News view of the world, the Justice also claimed to hate politics.

His wife Ginny obviously has no such enmity. She’s a Tea Party activist and paid lobbyist, something her husband forgot to mention on his 2011 disclosure form.

Both Justice and Mrs. Thomas did their best to kill Obamacare. Ginny was compensated to try to block it from becoming law and Clarence ruled with the Supreme Court’s minority in saying that the individual mandate is unconstitutional.

Adam Winkler, a professor at the University of California School of Law, told Mother Jones‘ Adam Serwer that Thomas’ comments hurt the integrity of the Court.

“There’s a great irony in that Thomas has his position because he was approved by elites in the Senate,” Winkler added, “while Obama owes his position to the voters.”