And now come the calls for Clarence Thomas to step down

Hot Air.com ^ | December 6, 2017 | JAZZ SHAW

[Kaslin]

It’s not the first time I’ve heard it, but after reading this op-ed from Jay Kaganoff in the Washington Post, I’m guessing we’ll be seeing more of it. After the cacophony of calls for Hollywood moguls and media figures to lose their jobs and elected officials to resign or be removed following allegations of sexual assault and harassment, it was inevitable that Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas’ name would eventually come up.

Kaganoff titles his piece, Fellow conservatives, it’s time to call on Clarence Thomas to resign. The author makes at least a partially convincing case, depending on where you personally set the bar for convictions in the Court of Public Opinion. If allegations which can’t or won’t be tested before a jury are enough to remove senators, congressmen and movie studio chiefs, why not a Supreme Court justice? Kaganoff reviews the evidence from Thomas’ confirmation hearings and believes that Anita Hill’s claims pass the smell test.

It’s always a question of balance between believing the victims and avoiding mob mentality. But there are a few factors that tilt toward Hill’s version of the story.

It wasn’t exactly his word against hers; she had witnesses whom the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, did not call up. And Biden is a Democrat, so there goes the “they only attacked him because he’s conservative” narrative. He was confirmed by a Senate under Democratic control.

In an interview on CNN, conservative journalist Bethany Mandel talks about how coming forward affects women. “This will be the only thing these women are ever known for. That’s not something someone wants to sign up for.” Hill is a law-school professor with a respected career in her own right, but she has to carry this around with her — without even the satisfaction of having her harasser punished.

I would suggest we apply the same test to Thomas as we have to others in the spotlight such as Franken, Conyers and Moore. As to credibility, were there multiple victims making such reports? In this case it seems not. Did the accuser make the accusation or at least tell other witnesses at the time? Well, perhaps not at the time it happened, but contemporaneous witnesses were heard from. Did the accused own up to the deed and apologize? Not in this case, but neither have some others who are being called on to step aside.

There’s also the severity of the actions being alleged, keeping in mind that there is still a definite line between harassment and assault. Anita Hill told of some extremely brutish language which, if true, would certainly amount to harassment in 2017. But forcible, unwanted contact such as groping a sleeping woman’s breasts didn’t really come up so I suppose we’re on the harassment side of the fence here as opposed to assault.

I don’t know. I’m having a hard time mustering the same level of “They Must Go Now” reaction when considering the stories of Justice Thomas and Anita Hill, but if we believe her accusations they can’t simply be excused, either. The problem here is that Thomas has rejected all of these accusations all along. There’s no reason to think he would suddenly admit to the alleged deeds and sheepishly resign. At that point, you have no option to remove him from the bench short of impeachment. Would alleged but unproven harassment rise to the required level of offense for the House to bring the charges and the Senate convict him?

Color me skeptical on both counts, even if the Democrats held the majority in both chambers. And I’m not saying this out of convenience because he’s one of the conservative justices on the bench. Were he removed right now, President Trump would replace him with a new name off of his famous list and you’d have a new, probably younger conservative judge on the bench. This is a question of whether or not both Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill are being treated as fairly and impartially as is possible under the circumstances. And unlike Mr. Kaganoff, I don’t see such a clear answer on this one.

[Lisbon1940]

I agree with you, it f he does it now it will look like a guilty plea. He may need to hang in there a while.

[4Runner]

He’s 70 and can’t last forever.

Seventy is the new Fifty.

[4Runner]

It’s the turpentine that does it to them oil painters.

[Viking2002]

Exactly. A he said/she said allegation that was unprovable on it's face from the moment it was thrown out to the public, even before Slick Willy came to soil the Oval Office. Let us assume, for one moment, that it did occur. A hair was found on a soda can. Said hair and Coke can were disposed of in short order, eliminating any supposed evidence that the plaintiff could have introduced. I further posit this: people of the swarthy persuasion have kinky body hair, and not just in their nether-regions. It could have been anybody's hair, even Hill's own, from their head, forearms, or anywhere else that may have been exposed to the environment. It doesn't matter what race you are; people shed, just like dogs, cats, and everything else on the evolutionary tree. People can accuse anyone of anything; the burden of proof rests upon the accuser. And that's why I say that this particular little Leftist jihad is a vengeful, petty, feeble temper tantrum (and don't Libs know how to do that!) toward a competent, conservative member of the Supreme Court to try and extract a pound of flesh for running Franken and Conyers out of Washington.

But, that human dementia is the reality that exists here, in..........

[AndyJackson]

Fellow conservatives

This is slander. Conservatives aren't his fellows.

[The Great RJ]

There is a 600# gorilla in the corner that the sexual harassment Inquisition is ignoring....Bill Clinton

[Washi]

Normally, the dems would circle the wagons and weather the storm. They are folding WAY too easily, especially on a big fish like Conyers.

I don’t think they’d waste two senators on Moore.

They definitely have a game plan and they are going after big game. I thought it was Trump, but doubt that’ll ever happen. Aside from a president, a supreme court justice is the next, biggest target.

I don’t see it happening with Thomas, either, given the fact that Hill is old news for which he’s already been crucified.

So, unless there are NEW, credible complaints against Thomas, I’m unsure what the dems game is here.

[jonno]

” replace him with a 45 year old just like him.”

Ha - wouldn’t that be a hoot! That’ll shut em up!

[SamuraiScot]

Sometimes I wonder if this is women’s revenge.

The eternal mystery: Bragging, or complaining?

[Rusty0604]

Wouldn’t be a hoot to Justice Thomas.

[Swordmaker]

It wasn’t in the Exorcist, it was in some porn movie called Long Dong Silver or something like that, and it had been involved in a court decision somewhere.

It WAS in The Exorcist. The character who said it was a movie director named Burke Dennings (played by Jack MacGowran).

Jack MacGowran as Burke Dennings in The Exorcist

Dennings is the one who the little girl, Regan, supposedly kills when she is possessed, using superhuman strength breaking his neck and throwing him out the window onto the steep staired walkway while her mother's assistant has run an errand to the store and left Dennings to watch Regan.

It's actually a gin where Dennings claims to have found a pubic hair. Here is the line from the script.

Burke Dennings: [to a prominent senator at (Regan's mother) Chris' party]. "There seems to be an alien pubic hair in my gin. Never seen it before in my life! Have you?"

This line is frequently cut from the TV versions of The Exorcist.

Shortly after this scene, Regan appears in the living room where a few remaining party guests are singing songs around an astronaut who is playing the piano. Regan announces to the piano player "You're going to die up there." and then urinates on the floor.

Anita Hill in her testimony against Thomas changed the drink from "gin" to a "Coke," but otherwise the quotation she attributed to Thomas was almost word for word from the movie.

Others who were in the office at the time she claimed he made the pubic hair query do not at all remember it. Only her, yet she claimed he made it as a general query to the office staff.

The Senate hearings even brought up The Exorcist because senators recognized the line from Hill's testimony and asked Thomas had he ever seen the movie. He testified he had not. They asked him if he had seen any scenes from the movie. He stated he had only seen the floating above the bed scene on the news.

Anita Hill claimed that Clarence Thomas referenced Long Dong Silver's performance in a porn movie in public at a party, making crude jokes about his size in comparison, and supposedly he, according to her, produced a nude picture of the porn actor. No others who were present at that party supported her story. She was the sole complainant against Thomas. From the transcript of the testimony, Sen. Orrin Hatch reported that Hill had years before made exactly the same accusation against another supervisor named "Brand" using the exact same wording about Long John Silver in county government sexual harassment case. Seems odd that the same thing would have happened to her again with the same porn star being shown to her by two different men so separated in time. . . or was this a pattern of behavior on her part?

That porn movie had nothing to do with the quotation.

[Swordmaker]

It wasn’t in the Exorcist, it was in some porn movie called Long Dong Silver or something like that, and it had been involved in a court decision somewhere.

PS: There never was an actual porn movie named "Long Dong Silver" . . . that was the nom de porn of a male porn actor who made several porn movies based, er, on his supposed endowment which was claimed to have been 24" long. It wasn't.

While it was somewhat oversized by normal standards, it was enhanced by photographic tricks and a prosthetic, er, dongle, made by the make-up artist who had done the Elephant Man's prosthetics for that movie. How appropriate.

[Swordmaker]

Okay, if we're going back that far, can we ask Bill Clinton to step down too? And, if he does so, "belatedly", can we undo all the harm and destruction he subjected the country to?

How about he steps down retroactively? Say from the day he first behaved inappropriately with any woman? Let's see. . . that would be sometime when he was, say, running for governor? Anything after that would be null and void?

[Swordmaker]

Justice Breyer grabbed my crotch. He should step down.

Justices Sotomayor and Ginsburg tried to get me to go with them to have a four some with Justice Breyer while mud wrestling in front of Justice Kennedy. They said it was going to video record by some Assistant Attorney General named Rod something or other and directed by a guy named Mueller. I was highly offended by the offer. I think they should all resign.

[logos]

The “clear answer” was provided by the Democrat Senate on the date they confirmed Thomas to the Supreme Court. He was judged politically and acquitted. Adjudicated and resolved.

[Yaelle]

If there were photos of Thomas with his hands on some sleeping woman’s breasts, I’d agree. As it is, he was accused of making dirty jokes to a subordinate. He didn’t pull anything out or pleasure himself or touch. So I’m not seeing any need to step down.

[Gene Eric]

The Democrat Thug Party and its high-tech lynchin’

[cynwoody]

Trump has obviously read their playbook and has turned it against them.

Hillary's senior thesis at Wellesley was on Saul Alinsky.

[Impy]

Whaduya gonna do when he doesn’t? Stop seeing his movies? Hahahahaha.

[Defiant]

Now I’m offended that I wasn’t invited.