him "the best person" in the country to take Marshall's place on the court, a characterization belied, according to constitutional law expert Michael Gerhardt, by Thomas' "limited professional distinction, with his most significant legal experiences having been a controversial tenure as chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and barely more than one year of experience as a federal court of appeals judge." In 1992, Gerhardt described the Thomas nomination as "a bold political move calculated to make it more difficult for many of the same civil rights organizations and southern blacks, who opposed Judge [Robert] Bork's [Supreme Court] nomination, to oppose Justice Thomas." He also wrote that, "in selecting Justice Thomas, President Bush returned to a practice – nominating extreme ideologues for the Supreme Court – that many hoped had ended with the Senate's rejection of Judge Bork." Response to Thomas' nomination Attorney General Richard Thornburgh had previously warned Bush that replacing Thurgood Marshall, who was widely revered as a civil rights icon, with any candidate who was not perceived to share Marshall's views would make the confirmation process difficult; and the Thomas nomination filled various groups with indignation, among them the: NAACP, Urban League and the National Organization for Women, who believed he would likely swing the ideological balance on the court to the right. They especially opposed Thomas' appointment because of his criticism of affirmative action and also because they were suspicious of his position on Roe v. Wade. In the second half of the 20th century, Supreme Court nominees were customarily evaluated by a committee of the American Bar Association (ABA) before being considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Anticipating that the ABA would rate Thomas poorly, the White House and Republican Senators pressured the ABA for at least the mid-level "qualified" rating, and simultaneously attempted to discredit the ABA as partisan. Ultimately, on a scale of well-qualified, qualified, or unqualified, 12 members of the Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary voted that he was "qualified", one abstained, and the other two voted "not qualified", for an overall vote of qualified. This vote represented one of the lowest levels of support for Supreme Court nominees. Although the ABA vote was viewed as a "significant embarrassment to the Bush administration", it ultimately had little impact on Thomas' nomination. Some of the public statements of Thomas' opponents foreshadowed the confirmation fight that would occur. One such statement came