No Doubting Justice Thomas

Jan. 22, 2007— -- Find candidates for the Supreme Court who'd resemble Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia.

Those were the marching orders that President Bush gave his legal advisers in the earliest days of his administration.

Bush wanted justices like Thomas and Scalia. He wanted to nominate solid judicial conservatives who would reject the liberal line on abortion, affirmative action and presidential power, and not succumb to pressure from the left when negative reviews from The New York Times' editorial pages started rolling in.

On Bush's marquee, Thomas -- not Scalia -- got top billing, which contradicts the conventional wisdom on the often-maligned and most misunderstood justice. And a wealth of recently unearthed documentary evidence shows conclusively that the portrayal of Thomas as a dutiful understudy to Scalia is patently wrong.

In her new book, "Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court," ABC News correspondent Jan Crawford Greenburg was allowed an unprecedented look at the highest court in the land, starting with the Rehnquist court and extending through the nominations of Samuel Alito and John Roberts.

Noel Francisco, who clerked for Scalia a decade ago, said the misconception stems partly from the mistaken view that "all conservatives basically think alike. So they look at Scalia and Thomas, they see they're both conservatives they must think alike."

And if Thomas and Scalia think alike, the old storyline went, it must be Thomas following Scalia.

"The other thing you have is the very unfortunate and wrongheaded stereotype that for some reason Justice Thomas isn't smart," Francisco said. "And so they naturally assume that because Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas think alike that it must be Justice Thomas following in Justice Scalia's footsteps."

Thomas's supporters -- and Thomas himself -- believe that criticism has a racial subtext. So do some critics, including Julian Bond, chairman of the NAACP and a longtime opponent of Thomas.

"It may have been in some peoples' minds that Thomas, because he's black, wasn't up to speed, wasn't able to think in the same kind of way," Bond told "Nightline" in an exclusive interview.