STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Good morning, I'm Steve Inskeep. On the day after Clarence Thomas spoke - the Supreme Court justice is famously silent during arguments, but yesterday he asked questions for the first time in a decade. He said he prefers to listen - that questions don't help. NPR's Nina Totenberg reports that a lawyer's argument yesterday seemed to come up eight minutes short of the allotted time. So here's a theory. Maybe by asking nine questions, Justice Thomas was being helpful after all. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.