The truth IS out there!

October 5th, 2007

I’ve got a bit of satisfaction today — we seldom connect the dots all the way up to the issues as hand; whether deliberate or not, MSM seems to take every side road and rocky path around “cause” and instead choose to debate “symptom” endlessly, examining details like all those blind guys examined the elephant … missing the big picture and making their points about disconnected body parts. But two editorials in mainstream publications made me purr like a cat, today — although if we HAD missed the big picture, nationally, I would neither have been surprised nor encouraged. I’m both, today … and pleased as a Cheshire!

I’ve been waiting for the Thomas spotlight to shift; while the majority of articles on his new book have singled out his dark, unforgiving rage and his whiny sense of martyrdom for analysis, I’ve been patiently biding my time ’til someone [a woman, I suspected] would get back to the facts of the Anita Hill case.

Anybody remember Long Dong Silver? The pubic hair and the Coke can?

Just as Dan Rather is going after the AWOL story after being blindsided by the mythological power of the presidency and those that rush to defend the position from all inglorious attack, the subtleties of sexism, racism and political expediency regarding the power of a Supreme ground out the sexual harassment of which he stood accused. As derisive as Thomas is of anyone using race to jump ahead or give them an edge, all he had to do to cow Congress was to pull the race card with his use of the word “lynching” while blasting them with his puffed-up black righteousness — and history writes the rest.

This guy is pathological, as his book defines, giving us the clearest look since his televised spectacle in the 90’s … just about every article written has had some form of the word “anger” in the title, proving that the nation has noticed with some alarm; that’s Exactly what we want from a Justice appointed to the Highest Court, charged to be balanced, fair and unbiased, eh?

In my mind, Thomas is the poster boy for the kind of self-delusion that drives people like his contemporary, George Bush, so afraid of admitting their own failings that they border on delusion and ever and always shot-gun their arrogance out at those they imagine stand in their way. It’s a form of defiance and self-contempt; and it’s a sickness that is apparently epidemic in the Republican Party.

The first bit is the real story on Clarence, in case you’ve forgotten, written by … yes … a woman. Then a couple of articles from the archives, defining his personal demons and radical thinking — after that, link to a really interesting analysis, too big to post … a head start on your “weekend reads,” if you like.

That brings me to the last piece — and another big grin from me. The New York Times, not always a dependable friend, has taken the Thomas rant to its logical conclusion … is this man unbiased enough to be allowed to serve on many of the cases he sits on? His emotional signature surely seems unbalanced enough to preclude him — and a cause for concern.

Now, I know — it’s only two opinion pieces; but it IS mainstream and it IS the kind of “cult of personality” issue that receives disproportionate attention … they will likely get read and integrated into the conversation.

The truth is out there, as Muldar said … when we hear it, it strikes like a gong and vibrates the whole.

As regards cult of personality issues, we’ll continue that tomorrow [barring a strike on Iran or a pretzel incident] with followup on two other personalities of interest — Dan Rather and Hillary Clinton.

Jude

One Angry Man
Clarence Thomas Is No Victim
Ruth Marcus, Washington Post
Wednesday, October 3, 2007

To read Clarence Thomas’s book is to be struck anew by the blast-furnace of his anger — at Democrats; at liberal interest groups; at the media; at, of course, Anita Hill.

There are wounds that never heal, but, for most, time tends to at least salve the injury. Not for Thomas, even 16 years later. The 289 pages of “My Grandfather’s Son” pulsate with Thomas’s rage.

“Whoop-dee damn-doo,” Thomas relates telling his wife when she interrupted his bath to report that he had been confirmed. “Mere confirmation, even to the Supreme Court, seemed pitifully small compensation for what had been done to me.”

Thomas v. Hill is one of those questions destined to remain disputed — Did Al Gore actually win the presidency? Was the intelligence manipulated to mislead us into Iraq? The conundrum of Thomas-Hill is the continuing forcefulness of their conflicting assertions about what happened when he was a Reagan administration official and she a young lawyer working for him.

If Thomas did what Hill claims, how to understand his undimmed anger, his absolute denials, his willingness to pick the scab anew? If he didn’t, how to understand her motive for lying — and her summoning such unlikely details as pubic hairs on Coke cans?

I covered the Thomas hearings for The Post, every excruciating hour, and I can imagine, as Kevin Merida and Michael A. Fletcher suggest in their book, “Supreme Discomfort,” that the entire story has not been told. Perhaps there was some flirtation, maybe more, that it behooved neither party to acknowledge.

But I also believe the evidence then backed Hill’s version of events. What has emerged since only further buttresses her assertions.

Thomas describes Hill as a “touchy and apt to overreact” employee whom he’d refused to promote; who asked to follow him from the Education Department to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission after the alleged harassment; and who continued to seek his professional help after leaving the agency.

“I felt sure that I had never said or done anything to her that was even remotely inappropriate,” he writes, and, if he had, “she would have complained loudly and instantly, not waited for a decade to make her displeasure known.” For his part, Thomas describes himself as “one of the least likely candidates imaginable for such a charge.”

Here is some of the evidence Thomas omits:

First, Hill did not wait 10 years to complain about his behavior. Susan Hoerchner, a Yale Law School classmate of Hill’s, described how she complained of sexual harassment while working for Thomas, saying the EEOC chairman had “repeatedly asked her out . . . but wouldn’t seem to take ‘no’ for an answer.” Ellen Wells, a friend, said Hill had come to her, “deeply troubled and very depressed,” with complaints about Thomas’s inappropriate behavior. John Carr, a lawyer, said that Hill, in tears, confided that “her boss was making sexual advances toward her.” American University law professor Joel Paul said Hill had told him in 1987 that she had left the EEOC because she had been sexually harassed by her supervisor.

Second, Hill was not the only former subordinate of Thomas’s with complaints. Former EEOC employee Angela Wright described how Thomas pressured her to date him, showed up uninvited at her apartment and asked her breast size. “Clarence Thomas would say to me, ‘You know you need to be dating me. . . . You’re one of the finest women I have on my staff,” Wright told Senate investigators.

Wright’s account was corroborated by Rose Jourdain, a former speechwriter who, like Wright, was dismissed by Thomas. Jourdain said Wright had complained that she was “increasingly nervous about being in his presence alone” because of comments “concerning her figure, her body, her breasts, her legs.”

Another former Thomas employee, Sukari Hardnett, said of his office, “If you were young, black, female and reasonably attractive, you knew full well you were being inspected and auditioned as a female.”

Third, as Merida and Fletcher found, some of the behavior Hill complained about resonated with episodes from Thomas’s past. Hill described an episode in which Thomas, drinking a soda, asked, “Who has put pubic hair on my Coke?” James Millet, a college classmate of Thomas’s, recalled “an almost identical episode” at Holy Cross. “Pubic hair was one of the things he talked about,” another classmate said. Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson, in “Strange Justice,” found two others who recalled a pubic hair-Coke can comment at the EEOC.

Similarly, Thomas had a well-known taste for the kind of extreme pornography Hill said he brought up with her. “Listening to her, it was as if I was listening to the guy I knew speak,” said law school classmate Henry Terry. Washington lawyer Fred Cooke saw Thomas, while EEOC chairman, checking out a triple-X video of “The Adventures of Bad Mama Jama.”

Thomas dismisses these claims as the workings of a mob — in pinstripes instead of white robes — seeking to “keep the black man in his place.” He may have convinced himself of this. The record suggests otherwise. ++

Clarence the Credible
How Journalists Blew the Thomas Story
Extra! Special Issue on Women 1992
Reprinted 10/07
Laura Sydell, Fairness&AccuracyInReporting

News media repeatedly told the U.S. public that Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas were two equally credible people with conflicting stories. And if we believe the polls, most of the country found his version more persuasive. But if the press had given the public more information, would they have doubted Thomas? Numerous stories that raised questions about Thomas’ credibility were known to the press during the hearings—many of which never saw the light of day until after his confirmation.

The other women

Anita Hill was not the only women to allege that she had been sexually harassed by Thomas. Angela Wright, who worked with Thomas at the EEOC, told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Thomas had repeatedly made comments to her, much like those he allegedly made to Hill, pressuring her for dates, commenting on her body, etc. As chair of the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Joseph Biden decided against publicly hearing Wright’s testimony. Transcripts were, however, released to the press.

Another former Thomas assistant, Sukari Hardnett, made further damaging charges against him. Although Hardnett made it clear she was not accusing Thomas of sexual harassment, she provided the Judiciary Committee with sworn testimony that “if you were young, black, female, reasonably attractive and worked directly for Clarence Thomas, you knew full well you were being inspected and auditioned as a female.”

When Hardnett’s statement was reported in major national papers, it was usually buried. And news reports continued to assert that the Hill/Thomas matter was a case of one person’s word against another’s.

At the EEOC

And what about Thomas’ role in the 1980 Reagan administration Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) transition team? He helped draft a memo that challenged sexual harassment regulations, stating that

the vagueness of the definition of discrimination has undoubtedly led to a barrage of trivial complaints against employers around the nation. The elimination of personal slights and sexual advances which contribute to “an intimidating, hostile or offensive working environment” is impossible to reach.

The memo concluded that “expenditure of the EEOC’s limited resources in pursuit of this goal is unwise.”

It was certainly a newsworthy insight into his views just prior to the alleged sexual harassment of Hill, particularly since it dismisses exactly the kind of harassment that Thomas was charged with.

The memo, which was publicized on New York City’s WFUV, was only picked up by a few major media outlets. The Wall Street Journal did publish an opinion piece by Susan Faludi (10/18/92) that showed that Thomas was instrumental in dismantling the EEOCs last remaining class-action sex discrimination suit (against Sears Roebuck & Co.), but only after Thomas was confirmed.

Conflicts of interest

Another facet of Thomas’ career that was virtually ignored was the striking conflict-of-interest he faced in his short tenure on the appeals court (Nation, 9/23/91). Thomas ruled on a case involving Ralston Purina, helping to overturn a $10.4 million damage award against the company, even though the firm is largely owned by the family of Thomas’ close friend and patron, Sen. John Danforth. USA Today noted this conflict-of-interest, but the New York Times and Washington Post did not report the story.

Why didn’t these stories get more play? Nina Totenberg of NPR and Howell Raines, the New York Times national desk editor in Washington, both said that the most significant reason for not reporting these stories was the Democratic senators. Said Raines: “They didn’t ask the questions that would have elicited the kind of investigative reporting we wanted to do.” The Baltimore Sun’s Lyie Denniston defended his colleagues’ failure to bring out information that the senators didn’t highlight: “There is a point beyond which the press won’t do the senators’ job for them.”

But if it’s up to the Democrats and Republicans to decide whats news, then why not just let them write their own newspapers? ++

The Next Big Thing in Law? The Harsh Jurisprudence of Justice Thomas
ADAM COHEN, New York Times
June 3, 2007

In the last 100 Supreme Court arguments, Clarence Thomas has not uttered a word. Court watchers have suggested a variety of explanations. Among the least flattering: he is afraid that if he speaks he will reveal his ignorance about the case; he is so ideologically driven that he invariably comes with his mind made up; or he has contempt for the process.

In their provocative new book, “Supreme Discomfort: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas,” two Washington Post journalists, Kevin Merida and Michael Fletcher, ponder Justice Thomas’s extraordinary silence, and many other puzzles. They offer a wealth of insight, but they have no answer to the central enigma he poses: why the justice who has faced the greatest hardships regularly rules for the powerful over the weak, and has a legal philosophy notable for its indifference to suffering.

It is a particularly timely question. For 15 years, Justice Thomas was a marginal figure, rarely assigned to write major opinions because his views were so far right that he would have had trouble attracting five votes. But Justice Thomas is a lot less marginal with the recent changes in the court — particularly the replacement of Sandra Day O’Connor, a moderate conservative, with Samuel Alito, a more extreme one. He appears poised in the next few weeks to achieve his longstanding goal: dismantling the integrationist vision of his predecessor Thurgood Marshall.

Justice Thomas’s early years were not as hardscrabble as his image-makers suggested during his confirmation; he left tiny Pin Point, Ga., young, and was raised in a middle-class home. But he grew up in the Jim Crow South, with an absent father and an often-absent mother. He spent much of his childhood, the authors say, being “angry and hurt.”

In college and law school, he identified strongly with his fellow blacks, and was liberal, even radical, on racial issues. But as he accepted jobs from Republicans eager to hire a conservative black lawyer, he shifted rightward. As chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, his phlegmatic advocacy for victims of discrimination disappointed civil rights activists, while impressing conservatives looking for a replacement for Justice Marshall.

His confirmation hearings, at which Anita Hill accused him of sexual harassment, put an even sharper edge on his ideology. He redirected his anger, much of which had been aimed at whites, at liberals and civil rights organizations. Justice Thomas is now beloved on the far right, with friends like Rush Limbaugh, whose wedding he performed.

Justice Thomas wasted no time unveiling his harsh jurisprudence. In his first year on the court, he dissented from a decision holding that the ban on cruel and unusual punishment may have been violated when guards kicked a prisoner and punched him in the stomach, eye, and mouth. The prisoner had a split lip, bruises and loosened teeth, but Justice Thomas insisted that the Constitution did not prohibit such “insignificant harm.” He dissented from a ruling in favor of a prisoner who was handcuffed to a hitching post in the hot sun for seven hours while a guard taunted him about his thirst.

Justice Thomas also dissented from rulings that the mentally retarded and juveniles could not be executed. He can be counted on to reflexively oppose discrimination claims of minorities and women, as he did last week, when he joined the majority in rejecting the claim of a woman who was underpaid for years because of her sex, on the dubious ground that she complained too late.

Justice Thomas claims he is simply faithful to the “original intent” of the founders. But when the founders’ intent is not involved — as in the pay discrimination case, which was based on a modern statute — he is just as quick to reach a harsh result.

When Justice Thomas joined the court, he not only filled Justice Marshall’s seat, he also labored in his shadow. As a lawyer in Brown v. Board of Education, Justice Marshall had persuaded the court to champion racial integration. When he arrived on the court in 1967, he pushed it in a humane direction not only on race, but also in areas like prisoners’ and women’s rights and fair elections. The court had largely stopped moving forward in these areas by the time Justice Thomas arrived but, mainly due to Justice O’Connor, it did not move backward that much, either.

That appears likely to change. The court heard arguments this term challenging Louisville’s and Seattle’s voluntary efforts to integrate their schools. The court has long upheld voluntary attempts to bring students of different backgrounds together, including, just a few years ago, the University of Michigan’s affirmative action program. But this time, it is expected to strike down Seattle’s and Louisville’s, which is likely to make public schools much more segregated. With its new members, the court is also likely to make prisons less civilized, and workplaces, elections and criminal trials less fair.

When Justice Marshall retired, Justice O’Connor noted that he “imparted not only his legal acumen but also his life experiences” and made the court respond not only to his arguments but to “moral truth.” America will be a much less just place if Justice Thomas’s life experiences and moral truth start to shape the court’s agenda — and the nation’s. ++

The Unregulated Offensive
JEFFREY ROSEN, New York Times
April 17, 2005

The Angriest Justice
New York Times Editorial
October 5, 2007

Justice Clarence Thomas’s new autobiography dredges up his 16-year-old battle with Anita Hill and fulminates against liberal groups, Democratic senators and others who opposed his nomination. The clash with Ms. Hill has grabbed most of the headlines. But his fulminations deserve more attention. The rage he harbors raises questions about whether he can sit as an impartial judge in many of the cases the Supreme Court hears.

When Supreme Court justices write books, which is not often, they tend to write about subjects and in ways that are consistent with the dignity of the court. When he was chief justice, William Rehnquist wrote about the 1876 presidential election; Justice Stephen Breyer’s “Active Liberty” set forth a specific view of the Constitution.

The problem with Justice Thomas’s book, “My Grandfather’s Son,” is that it nurses bitter grudges and throws brickbats at organizations and people who opposed his nomination and might well appear before the court. Some of his targets, like Senator Joseph Biden and Yale Law School, he mentions by name. Others, like the American Civil Liberties Union, are not attacked as directly, but it is not hard to connect the dots.

The level of hostility is striking. He grew up fearing the Ku Klux Klan, he says, but “my worst fears had come to pass not in Georgia, but in Washington, D.C., where I was being pursued not by bigots in white robes but by left-wing zealots draped in flowing sanctimony.”

Justices have an obligation to avoid off-the-bench behavior hurtful to the court’s mission and reputation. They must also comply with federal law, which holds that justices should recuse themselves from participating in cases in which they are biased against a party or lawyer or in which their impartiality might reasonably be questioned.

If Mr. Biden, Yale Law School or the A.C.L.U.’s Southern California affiliate, which opposed Justice Thomas’s confirmation, have business before the court, it is hard to see how any of them could expect a fair hearing from Justice Thomas. But the Supreme Court allows justices to make their own recusal decisions, and no one should expect to see Justice Thomas bowing out of cases based on angry comments in his memoir. ++

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

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Entry Filed under: Political Waves