Posted on 09/29/2007 8:02:58 AM PDT by jdm
Matt Drudge has a leak that had to come from CBS about their upcoming interview with Clarence Thomas. Airing on Sunday, the Steve Kroft segment coincides with the publication of Thomas' memoirs, and Thomas doesn't pull punches. In the book he talks about the "lynching" he received during his confirmation hearing, and he says it damaged everyone and set the stage for the impeachment of Bill Clinton (via Bluey's Blog):
In his first television interview, in which he discusses his childhood, his race, his rise to Supreme Court Justice and his job on the nation's highest court, Clarence Thomas says the real issue at his controversial confirmation hearings 16 years ago was abortion. Saying the issue was "the elephant in the room," Thomas also tells Steve Kroft that the hearings he called at the time a "high tech lynching" harmed the country. The interview will be broadcast on 60 MINUTES, Sunday Sept. 30 (7:30-9:00 PM/ET, 7:00-9:00 PM /PT) on the CBS Television Network.
Thomas, whose Supreme Court positions on abortion issues have been conservative, says the confirmation hearings in which he was accused of sexual harassment by a former employee -- allegations he continues to deny -- were really about abortion. "That was the elephant in the room... That was the issue. That is the issue that people are apparently so upset about," he tells Kroft. "[That is the issue] that you determine the composition of your Supreme Court and your entire federal judiciary, it seems now," says Thomas.
He says the hearings harmed the accuser, Anita Hill, himself, and ultimately the country by setting a precedent manifested in other highly charged, media-infused events such as the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton. "The process harmed her. It harmed me and we see sort of the precedent of this kind of thing begin to harm even people like President Clinton," Thomas believes. "Things are out of control. That's not good for the country. It's not good for the court," he continues, "What are we going to look like years from now if we can't get people confirmed because everybody gets to attack them. They get to draw and quarter them," he says.
One cannot deny the connection, and it exists on two levels. On the surface, the focus on sexual harrassment in the office pushed by Democrats led to legislation that criminalized caddish behavior. Corporate managers and employees suffered through millions of hours of lectures on power differentials between employment levels and how even flirting between executives and staff should be considered potentially abusive. The significance of this in connection to Monica Lewinsky should not be underestimated.
On a deeper level, it helped amplify a dynamic that had started during the Robert Bork confirmation hearing. Before that, judicial confirmations had largely been non-partisan and non-controversial. After Bork, and especially after Thomas, they became bloody brawls, and both parties made the federal judiciary a Christians vs the Lions forum. That's not just a consequence of the Thomas "lynching", but the result of decades of judicial activism, which has given the Supreme Court far too much of a legislative function.
I look forward to reading the Thomas book. He has remained very quiet in the sixteen years since he joined the Supreme Court, even while others wrote his story. His side of the argument should prove an intriguing read.
I am pretty sure that all Supreme Court nomination fights are really about abortion.
where were Jesse and Rangel when this electronic lynching took place?
What was done to Justice Thomas was nothing short of a crime. Those people who participated are nothing but no class idiots whose brains are no where to befound.
The one good thing about it was that Arlen Specter accidentally fought on the wrong side, because he thought he would get points with blacks for defending a black man. Instead he angered all the feminists—and the black activists too!
He soon repented, but too late to keep Thomas off the court.
Clarence, unfortunately, you were the SECOND guy to get BORKED!
Has it been sixteen (16) years? Wow how time passes.
Think of where this country would be without Thomas. Hell might be a more pleasant place.
I saw an advertisement for this 60 Minute interview last night and immediately clenched my jaw.
“Noting good can come of this” was my thought. Doesn’t Mr. Thomas know that 60 Minutes has a deep and unrelenting anti-Conservative streak?
I hope that he fares well.
I do regret the fact that Justice Thomas chose to use the word “lynch” here.Yes,he was treated like dirt just as the RATS do to just about any Republican or Republican nominee but his use of “lynch” didn’t serve any useful purpose...IMO.
And I can't fault him. I watched the hearings wall to wall. No other term sufficiently describes what was done to him.
BTW, I know one of his former attorneys at Education, she was one of my roommates in college. She said Anita Hill was slime and Thomas was a good, decent man.
“do regret the fact that Justice Thomas chose to use the word “lynch” here.”
Watch the black radicals go berserk. Doesn’t Thomas know they own that word? It’s like saying “holocaust’ or “crusade”.
It’s a subtext of leftist racist victimization. You get to own parts of the English language and no one else can use them.
I had the good fortune to know Clarence Thomas’ mother, well enough to understand what a fine, wonderful, profoundly good person she was, and a lady in the finest senses of the word.
John Dean said that Nixon started it. I think it was on Al Rantel’s show this week,
Times have changed. The Drive-By-Media couldn’t get away with Anita Hill today, just like CBS didn’t get away with Rather-gate, or Kerry “Vietname Hero.” The New York Times didn’t get away with the Be-Tray-Us Ad, and they aren’t going to get away with saying Rush called anti-war soldiers phonies. Times have changed and the internet and talk radio keeps the truth in the public square. However, if Hillary gets elected you’ll see some quick moves to shut down our freedom of speech and a push toward “equal time”. The left depends on the ignorance of the masses and their believing the leftist media. Be afraid, be very afraid.
Holding the rope of course. =;_)
What else could they do? He's Conservative.
60 minutes and their MSM cronies have been lynching Justice Thomas for the last sixteen years, what's another hour?.
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