Michigan Senate hopeful Dr. Abdul El-Sayed formally apologized to Jewish Democrats for weaving a jab at Israel in his response to an attack on a Michigan synagogue in March.
Page A7From§Eachthe evening edition — 30 August 2026
Clyburn regrets defending Clarence Thomas, immediately backs a second chance for El-Sayed.
As it ran on the front
Here's a pattern worth sitting with. Jim Clyburn spent years being one of the loudest Democratic voices vouching for Clarence Thomas, telling anybody who'd listen that the man deserved trust and confirmation. Now he says he rues it — his word, not mine — and in the same news cycle he's out front backing a thirteen-justice Supreme Court, because apparently the fix for one bad judgment call is a bigger court to absorb the next one.
And then, almost in the same breath, he's extending grace again — this time to Abdul El-Sayed, who had just finished walking back comments about a terrorist's family in response to the Michigan synagogue attack. 'All of us deserve second chances,' Clyburn says. Fine. Nobody's arguing people can't grow. But notice the shape of it: regret, apology, forgiveness, repeat, on a loop that never seems to run out of forgiveness to hand out, as long as the person receiving it still has a future the party needs.…
…(cont) This isn't really about El-Sayed, and it isn't really about Thomas. It's about who gets to spend down the goodwill account and who doesn't. A senator can misjudge a Supreme Court justice for a decade, admit it was a mistake, and pay no price beyond a rueful quote to a reporter. A candidate can apologize once for one bad sentence and get publicly absolved by party leadership within days. Meanwhile the people actually affected by a thirteen-justice power grab, or by the synagogue attack itself, don't get a redo. They get to watch the political class forgive itself in real time and call it wisdom.
The tell is always the same: watch what gets a press release and what gets a shrug. Expanding the Supreme Court is a structural fight over who holds power for a generation, and it's getting the full second-chance treatment from a guy who just told you his last major judgment call was wrong. That's not hypocrisy, exactly. It's closer to an operating system. Grace flows toward whoever still has use to the machine, and the machine doesn't apologize, it reschedules.
“Grace is apparently a renewable resource for everybody except the guy asking for a bigger paycheck. Clyburn regrets vouching for Clarence Thomas for years, then turns right around and vouches for a man who just finished apologizing for something he said about a terrorist's family — the forgiveness spigot runs on a loop, it just never seems to run downhill toward anybody without leverage.”
“Sure, second chances for everybody — just ask Clarence Thomas how his second chance from Clyburn worked out. Democrats keep discovering forgiveness exactly when the cameras are rolling, funny how that works. Did I say funny? That's an observation, not a talking point, forget I said that.”
The receipts
Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) on Sunday said he supports Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed (D) after he apologized for comments he made following an attack on a Detroit-area synagogue earlier this year, with the South Carolina House…
Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) voiced his support for expanding the Supreme Court to 13 justices and lamented his defense of Clarence Thomas during the conservative justice’s confirmation in 1991. In an appearance on NBC News’s Meet the Press…
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.