Anita Hill: Yes, she was right

Fun fun!

In short: of course he fucking did everything Anita Hill accused him of.

Lillian McEwen was that woman.

At the time, she was on good terms with Thomas. The former assistant U.S. attorney and Senate Judiciary Committee counsel had dated him for years, even attending a March 1985 White House state dinner as his guest. She had worked on the Hill and was wary of entering the political cauldron of the hearings. She was never asked to testify, as then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), who headed the committee, limited witnesses to women who had a “professional relationship” with Thomas.

Now, she says that Thomas often said inappropriate things about women he met at work – and that she could have added her voice to the others, but didn’t.

Over the years, reporters and biographers approached her eager to know more about Thomas from women who knew him well. But McEwen remained mum. She said she saw “nothing good” coming out of talking to reporters about Thomas, whom she said she still occasionally met. She did not want to do anything to harm her career, she added. Plus, she realized, “I don’t look good in this.”

Today, McEwen is 65 and retired from a successful career as a prosecutor, law professor and administrative law judge for federal agencies. She has been twice married and twice divorced, and has a 32-year-old daughter. She lives in a comfortable townhouse in Southwest Washington.

And she is silent no more.

She has written a memoir, which she is now shopping to publishers. News broke that the justice’s wife, Virginia Thomas, left a voice mail on Hill’s office phone at Brandeis University, seeking an apology – a request that Hill declined in a statement. After that, McEwen changed her mind and decided to talk about her relationship with Thomas.

“I have nothing to be afraid of,” she said, adding that she hopes the attention stokes interest in her manuscript.

To McEwen, Hill’s allegations that Thomas had pressed her for dates and made lurid sexual references rang familiar.

“He was always actively watching the women he worked with to see if they could be potential partners,” McEwen said matter-of-factly. “It was a hobby of his.”

More included on his free-wheeling sex life and love of pornography! They were talking to the story writer today on NPR and apparently Thomas’s wife crank calling Hill is why she’s gone public about it.

So this is a publicity stunt to sell a book/manuscript? pass.

That’s one possibility.

This is why he never asks questions. Afraid he will revert to “What are you wearing”?

I’m just a wee bit suspicious of a woman who never said anything when she could have at the time of the hearings and at no time after that, but then decides to tell juicy stories as she is shopping a manuscript.

I actually have to agree with JeffL for once. I am not saying I automatically dont believe her, but it makes it a lot harder to do so when she decides to tell under these circumstances.

I’d say the circumstances are more accurately described as “now too old for it to really matter.” Probably the same reason she wrote the book at this time. Self-serving, sure, but not really an indication of lying.

Well, if writing a book about something makes it a lie then I guess that pretty much wraps it all up for the conservatives…

Non-conservative women should clearly just shut up and take it.

I do wonder how the justice system ever manages to determine the truth with all these potential book deals by defendants and everyone they know corrupting the process. Does David Brock saying his reporting on Anita Hill was a lie count?

Not saying something when it was relevant to a person gaining a lifetime position to the supreme court, and only saying something when your book is about to come out? Yes it does put suspicion on what they are saying.

She didn’t make the phone call to Anita Hill.

And that has what to do with her not saying something when it happened, or when Thomas was being confirmed when it would have done something more then just make her money?

It would certainly have done something more: potentially ruin her personal and professional life.

She has a manuscript, but again, she didn’t make the call.

Also, I’m sure she wasn’t excited about being defamed and attacked the way Hill was, and still is.

Good that she can get in on the tail end of the smears though. God forbid Thomas actually did anything.

It probably is true. But it’s too damn late now, and her prior silence makes her a co-villain of the hearings, with Justice Thomas no more of a villain than he already was. Who cares about the phone call?

From today’s NYT interview:

Ms. McEwen, who said she was surprised not to be subpoenaed by either side, did not testify about Justice Thomas at his confirmation hearings. She said she never received a response from a note she wrote to Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., who was running the hearings and with whom she had worked as a lawyer for the Judiciary Committee. She said the note, sent after Justice Thomas was nominated, reminded Mr. Biden that she knew the nominee.

Honestly, I can see why people dislike Thomas, and if true this is pretty gross behavior, but not exactly “disqualifies you from being a Justice” behavior, particularly during the time period he’s accused of doing it.

I don’t think it disqualifies him either. I just can’t stand his sanctimonious bullshit after getting called on it.

Like I said in the Tea Party thread, I think it’s pretty clear at this point Clarence hasn’t had the happiest home life for the past twenty years. When was the last time he was allowed to see even an R-rated movie?

Not likely in his bed…