Anita Hill has an Op-ed in today's New York Times. The Smear this Time is her response to Clarence Thomas, who, after 16 years, is running around the country seething, promoting his new book, proclaiming his innocence, and expressing an extreme loathing "for the media and the Senate and liberals and feminists and Anita Hill."
Anita Hill, professor at Brandeis responds:
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.
No surprise that Thomas is such a bitter and angry man. When you have a lifetime position on the Supreme Court because of affirmative action, but you trash the very concept and do your utmost to make certain no one else gets any, you obviously have some serious problems. I mean if affirmative action is so evil, why doesn't the man just step down?
Even Antonio Scalia has noticed that all is not quite right with Thomas.
But one of the best assessments of Clarence Thomas comes from Trey Ellis:
The most odious part of Thomas's memoir is his continued insistence that his contentious confirmation hearings elevate him to the canon of tragic black heroes like Native Son's Bigger Thomas and To Kill a Mockingbird's Tom Robinson.
As Jane Meyer and Jill Abramson clearly demonstrate in their book, Strange Justice, Anita Hill was only one of several and Thomas, now one of the twelve highest judges in our nation, lied repeatedly during his confirmation hearings. The bitterness that seems to be eating away at him and spews out of this book might stem from the fact that he was the head of the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission while he was sexually harassing Anita Hill and he is now sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America because he lied his ass off in the United States Senate.
And we haven't even touched on the foulness of Thomas's behavior toward his own sister.
First Draft: Anita Hill responds
BradBlog: Anita Hill's Turn Again: Says Clarence Thomas Still Lying in NYTimes Op/Ed
WaPo: To Cite a 'Mockingbird'
Washington Wire: Anita Hill Has Her Say
All Spin Zone: Clarence Thomas Helps Write His Own History
Anita Hill Clarence Thomas Affirmative Action Politics Sexual Harassment News Supreme Court Trey Ellis Scalia
