Urging Clarence Thomas to get a grip

October 2, 2007

With his autobiography hitting bookstores this week, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been in this news quite a bit lately, and most of the emphasis has been on two central points: Thomas is still bitter about Anita Hill’s (almost certainly accurate) accusations, and he’s still bitter that so many people believed her.

There are two op-ed pieces in the major dailies today responding to Thomas’ complaints, both of which are worth reading. The first is from Anita Hill herself, currently a professor at Brandeis University, with a piece in the NYT pushing back against Thomas’ dubious claims and standing by her 1991 testimony.

Justice Thomas has every right to present himself as he wishes in his new memoir, “My Grandfather’s Son.” He may even be entitled to feel abused by the confirmation process that led to his appointment to the Supreme Court.

But I will not stand by silently and allow him, in his anger, to reinvent me.

In the portion of his book that addresses my role in the Senate hearings into his nomination, Justice Thomas offers a litany of unsubstantiated representations and outright smears that Republican senators made about me when I testified before the Judiciary Committee — that I was a “combative left-winger” who was “touchy” and prone to overreacting to “slights.” A number of independent authors have shown those attacks to be baseless. What’s more, their reports draw on the experiences of others who were familiar with Mr. Thomas’s behavior, and who came forward after the hearings. It’s no longer my word against his.

Thomas, in his book and his publicity tour, takes repeated shots at Hill’s character and credibility, and in her op-ed, she debunks each bogus claim, calmly and methodically, one by one.

“My belief is that in the past 16 years we have come closer to making the resolution of these issues an honest search for the truth, which, after all, is at the core of all legal inquiry,” Hill concludes. “My hope is that Justice Thomas’s latest fusillade will not divert us from that path.” Good for her.

The other noteworthy piece comes by way of the WaPo’s Eugene Robinson, who has quickly grown tired of Clarence Thomas’ victim’s complex.

Thomas said in the interview that the scorched-earth battle over his confirmation wasn’t really about him, it was about abortion. Yet at other points he made clear that the whole thing was about him, specifically his commission of the ultimate sin: He is (drum roll, please) a black conservative. Cover the children’s ears.

“I’m black,” he told Kroft. “So I’m supposed to think a certain way. I’m supposed to have certain opinions. I don’t do that. You don’t create a box and put people in and then make a lot of generalizations about them.”

Enough with the violins. When Fox News bloviator Bill O’Reilly says that African Americans are “finally” beginning to “think for themselves,” I chalk it up to the fact that his germane experience with black people is probably limited to that recent dinner he had with the Rev. Al Sharpton and a room full of shockingly well-behaved patrons at Sylvia’s, the Harlem soul-food shrine. But Thomas should know better. Either he’s being disingenuous or he has a persecution complex of Norse-saga proportions.

Can’t it be both?

I watched Thomas on 60 Minutes over the weekend, and I was struck at how angry and undignified he was. If I hadn’t known better, you wouldn’t have been able to convince me that this bitter, petty, vindictive paranoid partisan is a Supreme Court justice.

  • I would say it’s both.

    This guy has to qualify as the single worst Supreme Court Justice, ever. Every decision he makes is done to spite someone or something. The day his life term comes to a speedy conclusion can’t be too soon for me.

  • maybe he’s angry about his confirmation hearings, but that’s nothing compared to how angry i am that this unqualified man has a lifetime appointment to the supreme court.

  • Either he’s being disingenuous or he has a persecution complex of Norse-saga proportions.

    Can’t it be both?


    It’s both. Most Republicans, like most Christians, believe that “truth” is just a series of statements which can be dictated by the highest authority, and that they’re being “persecuted” whenever anyone tries to bring reality into contact with their bubbles.

    They think that any and all information which contradicts their world view is by definition suspect and/or the product of evil agencies, thus relieving themselves of the problems associated with verifying the true nature of reality.

    They live in some very tough bubbles and they really don’t care, because to them it’s a battle of good vs evil and that makes lies not only acceptable but actually desirable.

  • Clarence Thomas is a pig who happens to be Black, a Supreme Court Justice, and a so-called conservative. What IS it about conservatism that results in sexual debauchery of so many?

  • I can’t believe he’d even bother mentioning the whole thing; let alone making a big deal about it. What an idiot. I’m always amazed when people don’t find victory enough, and have to keep re-fighting the battles they won. That such a small-minded schmuck is on the Supreme Court is very scary. But that’s the way it is with most conservatives. Their worst enemies are always themselves.

  • As a child I recall some black people in my community referring to blacks like Thomas as “white niggers” claiming they really didn’t want to be black and acted ashamed to be black siding with the whites on nearly every issue. They considered themselves white men who just happened to be black but certainly weren’t one of them. One thing for certain, Thomas is an authoritarian who places himself above the people.

  • “What IS it about conservatism that results in sexual debauchery of so many?”

    Anney, it’s what you get when you play the morality card.

    The conservative dream is a lot like the Christian dream, which is a lot like the fascist dream. It’s all about exerting control over as many people as possible. Souped up morals provide a way to oppress people for possessing natural urges. Tell them they’re bad and they’ll be shamed into doing whatever you say.

    There are two types of authoritarians: leaders and followers. Leaders will lie, cheat, steal, kill and oppress to keep people in line. Followers look for someone to lead them by setting up clear boundaries. They’ll suppress their own feelings and ignore obvious faults, lies, etc. in their leaders.

    It’s why you have a homophobic Senator tapping his foot in a stall. And a Supreme Court Justice who just can’t keep his hands to himself.

  • Anney wrote: “What IS it about conservatism that results in sexual debauchery of so many?”

    I wrote something about this a few weeks ago. I suspect that in part conservatism draws in so many deviants because conservatives are the ones who are spending all their professional working hours obsessing about sex. What better place to go to cover one’s own deviancies than a place where talking about such things is the norm?

    It’s like the now classic comment: “Conservatives spend more time thinking about gay sex than gay men do.”

  • I find it ironic that the same man who sits silently through oral arguments year after year, now seems to have found enough words to write a book.

    Here’s a man who was given an opportunity to be a jurist on the highest court in the land, to distinguish himself in many positive ways, to show the naysayers that he was worthy of the nomination.

    What has he done with that opportunity? He seems to have proven that the naysayers were right. His book seems to suggest that he is still bitter and angry about his confirmation hearings, to the point where he finds it necessary to continue to smear Anita Hill.

    What will his legacy be? Not a whole lot, bracketed by Long Dong Silver and a pubic-hair-decorated Coke can.

    What a waste.

  • Isn’t trying to get a grip what caused Thomas trouble in the first place?

    I too am surprised he’d bring up his confirmation hearings and Ms. Hill. Maybe if we assured him we were too busy loathing him for the things he’s doing now to think about that, he would feel better.

  • sits silently through oral arguments year after year

    I guess he finds enough fulfillment in getting back at everyone just through his votes.

  • “What IS it about conservatism that results in sexual debauchery of so many?”

    To be fair, we should note that conservatives don’t have a monopoly on sexual scandals. However, they do have more than their fair share, so an explanation seems in order.

    First, some conservatives seem uncomfortable with themselves and with sex, and they are afraid of what would happen if they and everyone else were to give in to temptation. This causes them to be repressive, controlling, and prudish, and it also sets them up for giving in to temptation in all sorts of wierd ways.

    Second (and particularly with respect to Clarence Thomas), conservatives who have a reasonable amount of empathy for others would be liberals. Without empathy, it is easier to be racist, or sexist, or moralistic, or to treat your employees the way Thomas treated Hill.

  • chrenson & gg

    Do you suppose conservatism, with its rigid “morality rules”, offers a cosmetic haven for those whose impulses take them beyond what they can’t accept in themselves? Do they think they’ll be able to overcome or at least control those impulses in a rigid moral structure? There seem to be strong elements of “I’m not okay” if that’s it.

    How strange though. A “softer” way to deal with impulses or drives that we don’t like in ourselves is to fully accept them first and then express them (or not) without guilt only when appropriate. Those who try to rigidly hold back strong drives/impulses end up expressing them in pretty twisted ways and being VERY sleazy. Clarence Thomas would probably make a better porn narrator than a Supreme Court Justice, given his history.

    But anyway, it’s the “family values” thing in conservatism that seems to bring down those who are sexually self-rejecting. I guess I wonder how the conservative movement was injected with this rigidity, and can only conclude that it was a gift of the religious right who were welcomed enthusiastically.

    And the blood-lust for warmongering seems to be part of that, too, maybe from the important parts of lives lived too small.

  • Bear in mind that Justice Thomas comes to us by way of those “reasonable ” Republicans GHW Bush and John Danforth. They are the ones that put him in place – Bush by nominating him and Danforth by shepherding him past the Hill testimony. Oh, also remember it was “reasonable” Arlen Spector who led the smear brigade that went after Hill.

    There are no reasonable Republicans.

  • Racerx noted:

    Most Republicans, like most Christians, believe that “truth” is just a series of statements which can be dictated by the highest authority. . .

    This is, unfortunately, true for Justice Thomas in the most literal sense. There are many different schools of jurisprudential thought – Scalia, for example, is an originalist, looking to the Constitution as if time stopped as soon as it was signed; Roberts is a strict constructionist in that he uses the narrowest construction of the words on the page, context or consequence be damned; Souter believes in the “living Constitution,” where its principles have to be judiciously applied to modern facts; others in the past have believed in the Court as an active countermeasure to majoritarian factionalism and would read language broadly to effect this purpose. Thomas, however, is the only justice, likely in the lifetime of anyone reading this, whose jurisprudence is based on “natural law.” He couches this by saying he believes the Constitution was “inspired,” but ultimately he believes that there is a law that transcends, that is a creation of God and ultimately should be heeded even if it is different from what is in the Constitution.

    Yikes.

  • As a Missourian I’ve seen the good and the bad of John Danforth and by far the WORST thing he’s done is inflict this monster upon us. Over the years I’ve read Danforth’s reasonable opinions about government and religion, among other things, but no matter what he says or does, I’ll never get past the images of him foaming at the mouth over getting Thomas confirmed.

  • anney wrote: “Do you suppose conservatism, with its rigid “morality rules”, offers a cosmetic haven for those whose impulses take them beyond what they can’t accept in themselves? Do they think they’ll be able to overcome or at least control those impulses in a rigid moral structure?”

    That is exactly what I was getting at. Conservatism, with its rigid morality, offers implicitly a ‘cure’ for those unconscionable impulses. Conservative groups end up becoming a magnet for self-loathing, sexually confused people. Unfortunately, the ‘cure’ is really all smoke and mirrors – strict repression never seems to work. What the Republicans end up with, ironically, is a larger-than-average collection of people with poorly-controlled sexual impulses. I’ve always suspected that the Catholic church pedophile scandals resulted from similar causes.

    This doesn’t seem to be the only effect at play, however. I suspect that a lot of the sexual deviants are also drawn by the misogyny that seems inherent in conservative morals. For them, treating women poorly is simply ‘the way it should be.’ In Thomas’ case, with his continuing bad mouthing of Anita Hill, this looks to be the strongest factor.

  • Best comment I’ve seen yet on the Anita Hill controversy comes from G. Will:

    “Anita Hill and her allies blazed the path subsequently trod by Crystal Gail Mangum and her fans in the university/media establishment in the Duke non-rape case last year.”

    But Thomas has an even better last word:

    Once I got on the Court, I vowed I would never do my job as poorly as journalists do theirs.

    Bravo! You’ve risen far far above the abysmal bottom-feeding standards of ink-stained hacks & political media-whores like Hill.

  • What I find interesting about Thomas’s rehashing of his confirmation hearings is that he’s told a generation of people who only know him as a Supreme Court judge about the whole sordid story. If he wants to be remembered in a good light, he should show himself in a good light. Moaning and groaning and saying nasty things about a woman do not create a positive impression. He seems petty and little. It makes you wonder what he was thinking to write this particular book.

  • Jen Flowers said: “What I find interesting about Thomas’s rehashing of his confirmation hearings is that he’s told a generation of people who only know him as a Supreme Court judge about the whole sordid story.”

    He really needs to read the classic Guy de Maupassant story, The Piece of String . Unlike Thomas, though, the protagonist of the fictional tale was innocent.

  • Clarence Thomas is a sham. Anyone who witnessed his ludicrous responses during the hearings saw an individual who clearly had no rebuttal to the charges other than angrily retorting that he didn’t even watch Hill’s testimony followed by his disgraceful but effectively intimidating use of the race card in describing the due process under which he was being subjected as “a high-tech lynching.”

    His performance reminded me of that often seen by criminals who, though clearly guilty, angrily and adamantly demand to be viewed as innocent.

    Hill’s testimony, by contrast, was measured and professional in the face of Spector’s belligerent and clearly skeptical questioning.

  • Anita Hill lied. She was never sexually harassed by Clarence Thomas. She lied about how she left the law firm she worked at before she came to work for Thomas – she was told that her work was subpar and she was going to be fired if she didn’t leave voluntarily. Her characterization of Thomas and the characterization of everyone else who worked for them were completely contradictory. Everyone else said the man was nearly prude-like when it came to talking about sex, she said he was a pervert.

    The racism and general bigotry of the comments here, from people who will never be a tenth as successful and influential in their lives as Clarence Thomas has been in his, who undoubtedly grew up in privilege that a young Clarence Thomas could only dream of, are hilarious.

    The argument that Thomas is being petty is identically hilarious. He was accused in a national firestorm of being a rather pathetic pervert – “pubic hair in my coke?” is pretty lame – a traitor to his race, and small-minded bigots who couldn’t hold a candle to him intellectually, wrapped in the cloak of anonymity, call him a disgrace.

    You’re the real disgraces. Racist, bigoted, ignorant – you’d all be right at home down on the plantation.

  • Clarence Thomas lied during his hearings when he denied ever even discussing Roe v. Wade at any time- even though he was a law student when it was huge legal history being made. He lied about Anita Hill, too. His pathological self-hatred and total lack of empathy are pitiable, but I wish they hadn”t become embedded in our jurisprudence. What an embarrassing, patheic man.

  • Clarence Thomas never lied about Anita Hill, racist, she lied about him. And is still doing so.

  • Anita Hill lied. She was never sexually harassed by Clarence Thomas.

    And you know this, how?

  • Chaos wrote: “Clarence Thomas never lied about Anita Hill, racist, she lied about him. And is still doing so.”

    So, you take the word of the man over the woman, and accuse her – without evidence – of being a complete liar and slander her work performance.

    Instead of accusing others of racism without evidence, maybe you’d better look at your own sexism…

  • She is a liar. And these anti-Thomas authors of Strange Justice found no instance of Thomas expressing a view on Roe in all their research. Follow link.

    ” The authors similarly mangle their own investigation of Anita Hill’s 11-month law-firm tenure before her job with Clarence Thomas. This job was at one of the “most sought-after law firms in the country.” During her brief time there, the authors reveal, Miss Hill was believed to be “romantically involved” with one of the firm’s married partners, despite the firm’s policy against such liaisons. Her work was perceived by superiors as “satisfactory, but not outstanding.” Indeed, some graded her work as “uneven,” and there were “more than a few criticisms.” She tended to “disappear” into the library, “left work altogether” during one emergency assignment, and produced fewer “billable hours” than any of the firm’s other associates.

    Any objective partner at any prominent law firm would have told Miss Mayer and Miss Abramson that only a miracle could have saved Anita Hill after such a miserable beginning, and would have had little trouble believing the affidavit of the partner who said she had been encouraged to leave. But the authors draw the revealingly untenable conclusion that Miss Hill was “not in any trouble” at the firm.”

    http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=MGNkN2IwYzAwMzY3ZWYwMjkyYTUyNjFkNmYwNWRhNjA=

  • How does Anita Hill’s 11-month tenure in a job before she worked with Clarence Thomas have anything to do with her testimony about his sexual harassment of her while she worked for him?

    What you posted isn’t related to her working with him. So what’s the point?

  • Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was not the only black man to grow up impoverished and under the strict adult mantra of “self-reliance”. Others lived similar backgrounds, yet did not adopt or share his politically conservative view of civil rights and the courts.

    To me, during his confirmation hearings, the real “elephant in the room” was neither Anita Hill accusations or abortion. It was Thurgood Marshall and everything he stood for as the nation’s first black Supreme Court Justice.

    Unfortunately, Mr. Thomas is no Thurgood Marshall.

    I also wonder if Thomas suffers from a form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder – an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to painful events or ordeals.

    Psychologically, I think Thomas is tormented and haunted by personal and profesisonal rejections throughout his life. His book and recent interviews lend credence to this viewpoint.

  • Anita Hill was and is a class act.
    Clarance Thomas has not class at all.

    Why is Thomas so obsessed with his race (which means he notices and is obsessed with everybody else’s race) when most Americans are trying to make themselves look past other people’s race and ethnicity by embracing the ideal of equality.

    Does it scare anybody that a man who almost certanly lied to gain confirmation, and by his own words is an admitted racist is sitting on the Supreme Court? Small wonder that he continuely supports injustice rather than Justice.

  • To Chaos

    Anita Hill was not the only woman to come to the Senate to testify about Clarence Thomas’s sexual abuses.
    She was just the only one that was given the opportunity to testify.

    Thomas is still obsessing about Anita Hill and is still abusing her. He provides the proof of his past thoughts and words with his present thoughts and words.

    He whines about how he was abused because he is an “uppity” black man, yet look what he allowed to, and helped to do and continues to do and helps do – to an “uppity” black woman. But he only counts the attacks on himself as “racist.”

    Is there any part of himself that he and the rest of this country do not find embarrassing and totally lacking in class?

  • John Burke, a former partner at the firm that employed Anita Hill, claimed, in an affidavit, that she was asked to leave the firm. However, Henry Green, formerly a partner in the same firm and presently a partner in Pepper, Hamilton & Scheetz, also filed an affidavit saying that he and 2 other attorneys supervised the new attorneys, which included Anita Hill, and that her work was satisfactory to all of them, and no one asked her to leave. He also said that Burke was a new attorney when Anita was there and that Burke had no authority over her and that she never worked for him. In short, Burke’s affidavit is untrue per Anita’s supervisors, those she worked for, and the firm’s records . . .

    http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/senate/judiciary/sh102-1084pt4/1019-1021.pdf

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