The ballz on these people:
A few days ago, Brandeis University professor Anita Hill received a message on her voice mail at work.
“Good morning, Anita Hill, it’s Ginny Thomas,” said the voice, “I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. Okay have a good day.”
Hill didn’t think the call was real.
“I initially thought it was a prank,” Hill tells ABC News. “And if it was, I thought the authorities should know about it.”
She reported the call to campus police.
Mark Matthews of our affiliate KGO learned about this and reached out to Virginia Thomas.
Thomas emailed him, saying: “I did place a call to Ms. Hill at her office extending an olive branch to her after all these years, in hopes that we could ultimately get passed what happened so long ago. That offer still stands, I would be very happy to meet and talk with her if she would be willing to do the same. Certainly no offense was ever intended.”
Rule by the tea party is going to be so awesome.
(via)
NobodySpecial
Well, you can’t expect a woman married to a sexual harasser to exactly be STABLE, can you?
JPL
@NobodySpecial: After 19 years you would think that Mrs. Thomas could let it go.
Hmmmmmm
Dee Loralei
Seriously, what kind of sick fuck holds a grudge that long? Jesus on a pogo stick, Thomas won, he’s sitting on the fucking Supreme Court doing untold damage to this country and enriching his fucking wife in the process. At least $550,000 for her special Pac.
Comrade Mary
Yeah, you were right to delete that, John. Sorry.
MikeBoyScout
Yeah, they could sit down and have a can of Coke…. or maybe not.
Holden Pattern
Why should this be surprising? I mean, Cheney got a guy he SHOT IN THE FACE to apologize.
This is American conservatism — you were stupid enough to get your face in the way of their shotgun, you dumb bitch, now apologize, or you’ll make them hurt you again, and then you’ll have to apologize for both times.
Steve
How about the difference between the message that was actually left and Ms. Thomas’ characterization of it?
That’s an olive branch? Maybe you could consider apologizing to my husband for falsely testifying against him?
JPL
She doesn’t hold a grudge imo, she sounds concerned about the next intern to spill the beans.
link
Derelict
Ah, I can see an unlimited vista of personal vendettas being carried out through the machinery of government!
You embarrassed Tea Party Candidate X by asking hard and biased questions such as, “What newspapers do you read?” Enjoy your IRS tax audit!
You refused to funnel fat contracts to Candidate Y’s brother-in-law? Have fun making it through airport security, asshole!
All in the name of freedom and the constitution, mind you.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and here I thought Mrs Alito was the nuttiest Supreme Spouse.
freelancer
@MikeBoyScout:
Coke Summit 2011!
Hal
No surprise. Clarence’s memoirs were described as bitter too. They both know how to hold a grudge. Still, why now? Skeleton ready to escape in 3 2 1
DonkeyKong
A high tech lynching of a low tech Folie à deux.
soonergrunt
These people are not just crazy but vicious, vindictive, cruel, stupid, and malignant.
So what else is new?
Mark S.
Of course not. You just called her a lying bitch. Why would she take any offense to that?
lamh32
Damn, great minds think alike.
I was just waiting for an open thread to post this.
It’s been all over the AA blogs I frequent.
All I can say is AIN’T THAT SOME SHIT!!!
The cojones on this woman must be larger than her husbands’!
curious
she was more demanding an olive branch than extending one.
Corner Stone
Who the fuck leaves a *message*? In 2010??
Who except someone who is absolutely batshit insane leaves a fucking voice ID message?
This lady is out of her GD mind.
MoeLarryAndJesus
From Wikipedia:
“Virginia Thomas took training with the controversial self awareness program Lifespring while a congressional aide.[1]She said in a 1987 interview with The Washington Post that she had to seek counseling after her decision to break away from Lifespring.[27] Thomas left Lifespring in 1985, and joined the Cult Awareness Network.[28] She ultimately had to hide in another part of the country in order to avoid a constant barrage of phone calls from Lifespring members, urging her to remain in the organization.[27][29][30] Thomas spoke on panels and organized anti-cult workshops for congressional staffers in 1986 and 1988.[27] In a 1991 interview, Thomas commented on Lifespring, stating “they are pretty scary people.” She also stated: “I was once in a group that used mind control techniques.””
Hah. “Once.”
She’s just in a different cult now.
geg6
You have got to be fucking kidding me. This blonde fat assed bimbo had the massive cojones to actually do this? Ho.ly.shit.
Good thing I’m not the very classy, very brave Professor Hill because I’d be on the next plane to DC to beat the living shit outta that bitch. Goddam.
burnspbesq
Goodness. If that’s not the all-time record for tone-deafness, I don’t know what is.
something fabulous
BTW, Mrs. Thomas? “past”.
Warren Terra
@JPL:
Are you kidding? Did you see any of the interviews Justice Thomas (now there‘s an ironic title) did when he released a memoir about three years ago? He did a whole hour on C-SPAN, and the only things I remember him talking about are (1) how much he still seethed with resentment over the confirmation process; (2) his hobby of RVing from Walmart parking lot to Walmart parking lot, and how much love he and Real America shared; (3) how he saved his nephew from his no-good crack-addled sister, for whom he had no apparent sympathy; and (4) no, really, it seemed like he might physically explode with seething resentment over the confirmation process at any moment. I’d have advised the camera folks to be ready to duck.
This from a guy who’s got what might be the best job in the known world (good pay, great perks, astonishing social position, little responsibility except to your conscience), has the job for life, and got it at the age of about 40 despite having no discernible qualifications or special merit, other than being a reactionary Catholic conservative activist, and of course being Black.
ETA If anyone has a particularly strong stomach, and wants to test my recollection, the C-SPAN interview is apparently online. But if my recollection comes up wanting, I will maintain I’m just remembering a different interview from his book tour.
MikeJ
I don’t recall there being much doubt as to Hill’s truthfulness, just that republicans thought “pubic hair on a coke can” was an awfully funny kind of joke and hey sweetness, just lighten up, ok?
Evolved Deep Southerner
Have you ever seen Clarence Thomas on camera? I’m thinking specifically here about the 60 Minutes interview with him.
What a creepy motherfucker. I mean, when he laughs, his eyes remain cold. And it is the most mirthless sound you’d ever want to hear.
And a picture of he and his lovely bride together? Oh, God.
lamh32
@geg6:
man I hate to use the word, but my first reaction was from my ghetto childhood…”Bitch plz”
MikeJ
I wish DougJ had posted this so we would have a Sonic Youth thread title.
curious
@Corner Stone: i’m guessing this call was made well outside of office hours, just in case.
morzer
I never imagined any woman could deserve a life-sentence as Clarence Thomas’ sexual plaything….
But I guess I have now officially changed my position.
Rick Massimo
“Extending an olive branch” = “Allowing you the precious opportunity to tell everyone that I was right.”
Any idea why NOW for this incredibly generous offer?
ruemara
@Rick Massimo:
some one mentioned it above, but I’m thinking bimbo eruption.
Benjamin Cisco
Seriously. What.The.FUCK. That is all.
David Brooks (not that one)
Was that an actual cut-n-paste from her email? Passed? Passed? She wrote that in something she must have known would be copied far and wide?
Dear God.
Maybe, just maybe, Jakey or his source copied it out wrong. Maybe.
hitchhiker
You seriously have to wonder what prompted that.
I mean, she was just sitting around planning for her next tea party panel discussion when it occurred to her that Anita Hill might need a voicemail to remind her that Ginny thinks Clarence was wronged?
If I heard that my sister did something like that, I’d figure she was off her meds.
JPL
Several years ago, the Boston Globe did a profile on Anita Hill and although she was disappointed about the congressional treatment at the time, she moved past it. The profile painted a picture of a confident, happy woman who does not have to apologize for being the victim of sexual harassment.
Clarence Thomas’ wife on the other hand needs years of therapy to overcome whatever ails her.
Warren Terra
I suppose that in a perfect world, “consider an apology” could be interpreted to mean “consider accepting an apology from me” and “come to understand why you did what you did” could mean “come to understand why you didn’t boot his balls up his throat”. But the actual meaning is quite clear: Virginia Thomas is calling Ms. Hill a lying b|tch. No, more than that, she’s suggesting Ms. Hill should call herself one.
Corner Stone
@curious: And I’m guessing she made it coming down off a 72 hour meth bender.
Just out and out crazy shit.
“Hey girl! It’s Ginny from the block. I know what you been doing with my man. Please don’t play this on YouTube.”
Just blows my damned mind that no one in the MSM has profiled the conflict of interest she represents, or how GD out of her fucking mind crazy she obviously is.
jrg
This really should come as no surprise. Most of these people can’t tell the difference between pedophilia, bestiality, and homosexuality… Do you really expect Ginny Thomas to understand the difference between sexual harassment and consensual activity?
something fabulous
@David Brooks (not that one):
@JPL:
See, Mrs. Thomas?
(sorry; I’m finding fixating on typos is about all I can cope with, here. Off to join the rocking in corner drinking brigade..)
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN)
@Dee Loralei:
19 years? I’m holding grudges that are more than 30 years old. When I get made dictator of the world, there will be executions.
Then again, I’ve never been considered particularly stable . . .
Citizen_X
Fucking olive branches. How do they work?
freelancer
@hitchhiker:
She does NOT fucking speak for Omaha, lemme make that abundantly clear!
Anne Laurie
@MikeJ:
__
You aren’t female, or you’d remember how bad it really was. The Repubs did their very best to destroy Hill’s career — look up David Brock‘s “A little nutty, a little slutty” quote, which he eventually did apologize for inventing:
__
It was very clear — plenty of Republicans were willing to say so, in print, at the time — that Anita Hill was being “made an example of” to discourage other women who’d been harassed by Thomas, and there were plenty, from testifying against him. There were a lot of Republicans who deserved to be driven from public life, if not actually jailed for their various crimes & misdemeanors, over the Thomas confirmations.
JPL
What else will Republicans demand apologies for?
McCain might say it was Obama’s fault that he chose Palin
Larry Craig might say he was only going to shine the other guys shoes…
It’s not Angle fault that those latinos were not Asian and they owe her an apology.
The republicans might deserve apologies that we don’t even know about.
Corner Stone
@hitchhiker: Listen. I don’t want to cast aspersions on anyone’s wife. But if the person I am lusting to have sexual congress with regularly thinks certain things are important? Yeah. I am listening to her.
lamh32
Seriously, this has really pissed me off now. What the hell is the point of this woman calling and leaving this message for Anita Hill.
Is Ginny Thomas a drunkard? Is she certifiable?
Anita Hill is a better person than I am. Cause if it was me, this bee-yotch’s voicemail would be all over the intertubes.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
Holy shit. This is certainly some kind of a threat.
RSR
Roger Ebert, FTW:
ebertchicago 8:08pm via Web
Some people, when they leave very important voice-mails after many years, have been drinking. Just sayin’ http://j.mp/aI3tIj
Will
Was this a play to gin up support for her PAC? Get Hill (somehow) to apologize publicly, and then Thomas comes out looking great (somehow) and this drives more support her way? I know that doesn’t make much sense, I’m just trying to rationalize why a prominent public figure would pull a stunt this stupid. Was she drunk?
eemom
maybe she’s suddenly realized what a dumb fuck her husband actually is, and is just lashing out in random misdirected freakout.
Or maybe he’s porked one of his clerks and she’s trying to do some kind of weird wingnut damage control.
Or maybe she’s so fucking stupid herself it took her 18 years to come up with this idea.
Really, the possibilities are endless.
Corner Stone
@Anne Laurie: I was not a female back then but you are dead right. They absolutely did what you state. Unequivocally.
Or I guess I could’ve just said *this*.
JPL
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.: Yeah..something is up. It’s not a threat against Hill, imo, but someone else who has had it with her husbands abuse.
geg6
OT, but has anyone else heard that Obama is going on TDS right before election day? Now that shows some mighty balls, the kind that impress me, not disgust me. In fact, I find it more manly than Chris Matthews found the Shrubs balls to be when he had to use a giant cup and a harness to make them viewable at all.
curious
@Corner Stone: she does sound a little bit nutty and a little bit even more nutty.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN): Yeah, that part of it makes perfect sense to me, but I am a little surprised that even a tea bagger would be so out of touch and over-confident to think this was a time to remind people of her husband and how a hard right Senate functions
The Thomas’s remind me of neighbors I used to have. They seemed like very sweet people, till you realized their niceness was just saccharine bait to draw you in to their endless litany of resentments– their kids, their bosses, their neighbors (I’m sure they complained about me to the others, too). They seemed to have bonded in a sort of low-simmering, paranoid resentment
scav
_
across the airwaves? who talks like this ’cause all I can come up with is hallmark and really cheesy afterschool specials.
Corner Stone
I’m a drunkard. And I’m not related to any SCOTUS.
And I emphatically would have never made this call, nor EVER left this message. I do not care how many days of drinking and pr0n I had subjected myself to.
Only meth heads and fucking certifiably crazy people do this kind of thing.
MikeJ
@Anne Laurie: Now that you remind me, yes, I remember that loathsome phrase.
I do remember republicans I knew admitting it was likely true, and then saying it was no big deal. Which seemed even worse to me.
martha
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.: It has to be. I suppose she could have been drunk or drugged on whatever prescription narcs she might be addicted to, but you just don’t do that. It’s a good thing Hill called the campus police ASAP. Ginny isn’t exactly hanging out with rational human beings these days. (And I’m not even talking about her husband.)
Cat Lady
I love that Anita Hill’s truthtelling has been a source of never ending bile in that relationship for all these many years. Those two sphincters are so perfect for each other, and the fact that almost 20 years has gone by before Ginny finally makes that call means that all those two do to each other is pick at that scab every single day. Anita Hill FTMFW.
Corner Stone
@Anne Laurie: And AL, you know what? If you read that blurb on ABC by Tapper it’s pretty clear that they want to make sure people understand the punishment isn’t over.
Twenty years later and they are reaching out to stick her face, professionalism and career in the mud again.
It’s disgusting. If Ginny Thomas isn’t some lone gunman on this then it’s clear there is a horrible message being sent to someone.
And one wonders which side the MSM will take if ever this deserves a prime time back and forth by pundits?
I’m sure they will be balanced.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN)
FTFY
Are umpires *ever* going to call their right field fans for interference? Haven’t we seen that exact play before, and MLB made rules to prevent it that just failed?
Tony Tarasco just threw something through his TV.
Edit: Gee, will they get the second call right?
Edit2: Yes. Finally.
PurpleGirl
@lamh32: Professor Hill called the college’s security department to listen to the phone message and they called in the FBI. I wonder who called in the NY Times reporter and told the Times about the call.
Omnes Omnibus
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN): I have a friend who says that her family motto is “Grudges are light and easy to carry.”
martha
@Anne Laurie: Yes, this. I remember getting the rethug message loud and clear–just smile and take it little lady because we’ll destroy you if you don’t. And they did.
AhabTRuler
@JPL: The best revenge is to live well.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN)
@AhabTRuler: The best revenge is teeing off on A.J. Burnett for seven runs in the top of the 3rd.
Oh, you meant Anita Hill . . .
Citizen_X
@Corner Stone: Hill makes it pretty clear that she ain’t in the apologizing mood:
Steeplejack
Off topic, but why do Yankees fans never get called for interfering with plays?! FTFY!
(Just had a Jeffrey Maier moment in the Rangers-Yankees game.)
MAJeff
@MikeBoyScout:
Yeah, they could sit down and have a can of Coke…
Glad to see I’m not the only one who thought of that.
kommrade reproductive vigor
OK, maybe I’m missing something, but this does NOT sound like a healthy relationship.
I mean really, would anyone do this, even a short time after the alleged harm?
Plus, a guy who needs his wife to call people and scold them is a guy who has NO BALLS whatsoever.
Steve
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
I had a pleasant phone conversation with Justice Thomas once upon a time. Not to get all Chris Matthews, but I found him quite personable and he had a good sense of humor. Most people who have had social contact with him say the same thing, which makes his public image that much weirder.
WereBear
Grudge holding, hatred, pathological inability to accept any kind of blame, self awareness, or insight; they’re not bugs, they’re features!
Ash Can
@something fabulous:
::hands something fabulous an open bottle of Crown Royal with a straw in it::
geg6
@Citizen_X:
I love Anita Hill. Just sayin’.
And yes, Anne Laurie, your memory correlates with mine about this disgusting episode.
lamh32
@PurpleGirl:
I wouldn’t be surprised if it was some “transfer person” from the university to the FBI!
Seriously, if the voicemail came out and the woman doesn’t sound drunk, then to my mind, that would make this “cold call” even worse, and more like an actual threat.
Doesn’t it come off as a “we’ll never forget” type of mob letter to a snitch or narc??? It’s like saying hey, we didn’t forget what you did!
Corner Stone
@Citizen_X: And I’m thinking that’s not even the point anymore.
IMO, there are two choices. Either Ginny Thomas is flat out fucking criminally insane, or this is a prelude to something worse.
I personally want to believe GT is just a drugged out Tea Party nutjob.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Steve: Maybe you’re right. I just went and found the 60 Minutes piece on YouTube and it wasn’t as creepy as I remembered it.
His wife’s cameo in that thing, though? Oh, my. Different thing.
And what kind of creepy motherfucker has occasion to talk to Clarence Thomas on the phone?
(Just playing, of course.)
stuckinred
@Steve: Yea he’s such and articulate uncle tom motherfucker now isn’t he?
PurpleGirl
@lamh32: It is creepy and I don’t see it as being particularly olive branchy.
PaulW
Dear Mrs. Thomas:
Do you think it’s possible for anyone to forgive you or your husband for the inflammatory bullshit you and your allies dumped on Anita Hill back in the day?
If you think what Hill said about your husband was bad, the defamatory crap you said about Hill was five times worse.
Burn in hell. I mean, have a nice day.
Signed,
Paul Wartenberg
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Steve: I’ve always read that too, but I think it was friends of his, more than one IIRC, who said that he hates the Court, but hangs on because he knows his being there pisses off liberals. He put a “15 cent” price tag on his Yale diploma because he thinks affirmative action “cheapens” it.
Now that I think of it, he’s like another version of Gee Dumbya, personally affable and pleasant, but bitter, resentful of imagined slights, and (rightfully) insecure about how he got where he is. Shrub, Thomas and Sarah Palin should get a group rate on therapy.
Mark S.
@Corner Stone:
That’s got to be it. I know we like to talk a lot about 11-dimensional chess around here, but Ginny Thomas ain’t playing it.
Ash Can
@Steve: I was friendly with Ginny Thomas in undergrad. We were classmates. We had friends in common. She was heartland-conservative, but not nuts. There was no indication at the time that she was this fucked up.
I need a good, stiff drink over this.
Gina
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You lived near my parents?
arguingwithsignposts
Lady Smudge sez: “Now apologize, ladybug!“
Sly
Who could have possibly predicted that two anti-social, petty, vindictive, right-wing psychotics could find happiness in each others’ arms.
Love truly is a many-splendored thing.
SteveinSC
Apropos, on the ersatz version of Olbermann tonight, Jamie what’s his name, law professor and congressman from Maryland said that Clarence “Uncle Tom” Thomas has such a narrow view of the Constitutional ban on laws establishing religion, that he believes states actually do have the right to create established religions, since the First Amendment only applies to the “Federal Government.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This is now what I believe you young people call a twitter tag:
matttbastard: “Dear Ginny Thomas: I’m sorry Clarence must find a new place to hide the liquor cabinet key. Prayerfully yours, Anita” #AnitaHillApology
Linda Featheringill
@something fabulous:
I may join you.
Damn.
Steve
@stuckinred: I wish I knew what you were trying to say here.
Mark S.
For some reason, this clip keeps popping up in my mind.
arguingwithsignposts
@geg6:
I also read somewhere today that he was going to be on “Mythbusters.” Quite a change from the last president who was in a reality series called “Mythmakers.”
chopper
@Will:
oh, there was gin involved all right.
stuckinred
@Steve: I’m saying who cares if he’s “personable” he’s fucking pig and an Oreo.
Allan
It’s very obvious to me, now that I’ve finished cleaning my brain matter off my computer.
Ginny’s PAC needs money.
She makes this call.
Anita makes it public.
The media re-litigate the story.
Ginny claims the librul media are slandering her husband again, please send lots of money to my PAC so we can fight the evil libruls.
Ginny’s PAC cashes in.
And she simply doesn’t give a fuck about what it does to her husband, because she knows from first-hand experience that what Anita testified to is only the tip of the iceberg where the disgusting lecher is concerned.
Ash Can
@Linda Featheringill:
::hands Linda an open bottle of Tanqueray gin with a straw in it::
WereBear
@Allan: Cripes, it’s hard to figure out which is worse.
It’s probably both.
Steve
@stuckinred: Well, that’s the spirit. My law school roommate, who was black (probably still is), made me cancel our newspaper subscription because they ran a pro-Thomas editorial during the confirmation hearings. It was a shame because that paper had a superior sports section.
I was responding, though, to a specific comment about Thomas’ personal demeanor. I wasn’t trying to suggest that his winning personality operates to excuse anything else about him – although I do have a small list of ways in which I think he gets a bad rap.
Linda Featheringill
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.:
I don’t see the threat.
Anita Hill saw it and notified the campus police. Some of the other people here see it too. But I don’t see it.
What am I missing?
Gravenstone
@arguingwithsignposts:And I’m sure many a wingnut explosion of sputtering outrage over the Discovery channel’s betrayal of them and their ilk shall follow.
Chris
Wow, that’s fucked up.
What’s next, George W. Bush calling Obama and asking him to apologize for making Bush look like an incompetent loon who fucked up the country?
MikeBoyScout
Question from the tangent……
None of us would read and/or listen to the words of Justice Thomas (and his colleagues don’t much either). Who the heck cares what his nut job wife says?
Ms. Hill does not seem to care.
AhabTRuler
For years in a very prominent place in Washington, DC, there existed a piece of graffiti which stated “Anita Hill was right!” And every time I passed that graffiti, I thought ‘Fuckin’ A’.
mai naem
I remember the Anita Hill hearings. One reason that I never liked Arlen Specter. I will never forget the way he treated like she was some mobster or some murderer trying to get out of a death sentence.
To me, this is plain and simple a threat to Anita Hill. Now, you will get some nutjob trying to physically hurt Anita Hill. These people are just a@#holes.
Gravenstone
@Linda Featheringill: It didn’t click for me either until someone upthread mentioned it as a warning and another posited a bimbo eruption in the offing. I believe they’re seeing it as a threat to someone currently unknown who may be threatening to expose Clarence’s sexual depredations anew. Do it, and we’ll do to you waht we did to that “bitch” Hill (or worse). The fact that they get a chance to try and twist the dagger in Anita Hill one more time is merely a bonus to the Thomas’.
stuckinred
@Steve: got ya, they like to bring him in to UGA Law School Graduations, guess I’ll skip the comments about that.
stuckinred
With all respect, will you permit me to express candidly my concerns about your proclivity for demeaning human rights? Will you allow me to tell you frankly, sir, that because of your relentless hostility to human rights claims you are a painful embarrassment to the Court you sit on, to America’s heritage of liberty, and to the rule of law?
Anne Laurie
@lamh32:
__
I remember Mrs. Thomas, during the hearings, insisting that Clarence had never been anything but very respectful to her and her (white) women friends & acquaintances. Also, she felt the need to point out, Anita Hill and the half-dozen other former staffers who never got the chance to testify were… African-American or Hispanic. Which “proved”, to Mrs. Thomas’ personal satisfaction, that those uppity minority women were just determined to “slander” her poor husband. (She can’t actually have used the phrase “who is a credit to his race” but she sure as heck implied it.)
Mostly I remember this because a conservative acquaintance demanded my opinion, and I had to point out that Thomas wouldn’t be the first man of color to take advantage of — even to internalize — the fact that women of color get even less respect from the justice system than us fortunate pale-skinned Scarlett O’Haras.
SiubhanDuinne
@arguingwithsignposts: Wow, don’t know what kind of lighting you were uusing but that is *awesome* photo of LS!
Kryptik
Mlegh….and I once again make the mistake of reading the comments on the ABC blog post, to see what the prevailing wind is out in the wilderness there…and see at least 75% of the comments calling Anita Hill everything short of a golddigging whore. Seriously, ‘lying leftist’, ‘not only apologize to Clarence Thomas but the nation for her pony show’, and bullshit that makes her out to be some kind of psycho stalker spotlight hog. Really fucking amazing, honestly.
How the fuck are we losing the country to these assholes?
freelancer
@arguingwithsignposts:
I wonder how many of Adam Savage’s “I reject your reality and substitute my own” T-shirts were sold to various members of the Bush Administration.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Linda Featheringill:
Political/media harassment; Rush Limbaugh reminding his listeners near Brandeis that That Woman lives in the neighborhood; Glenn Beck speculating that Anita Hill is part of a larger conspiracy to advance an agenda for Those People (women, African-Americans, sosh’lists, The Gai, in short, Them Who Aint Us); an army of googlers looking for her phone numbers, and her address.
Jules
Just a reminder to Anita that Thomas and Ginny are still out there.
Kind of a bit stalker-ish and I don’t know….obsessive?
kommrade reproductive vigor
@Chris: Well Laura sure as hell isn’t fucked up enough to do it for him. However, I could see Lynne CthCheney demanding an apology from Valerie Plame.
SiubhanDuinne
@aws: BTW, I hope you are submitting a photo of Smudge to the BJ 2011 calendar, see next thread over.
MikeJ
BTW, with xmas coming up just three or four holidays away, you should figure spell out how to add balloon-juice swag to amazon’s universal wishlist with a simple mouse click.
Sly
@SteveinSC:
It’s more than that. Thomas believes that the Establishment Clause does not protect an individual right, and therefor can not be subject to any doctrine of incorporation. Under this theory, a state can mandate a that residents pay a tithe to a particular church, or must provide other means of financial and/or other forms of support to sects of which they are not a member, and this will not be a violation of any fundamental right of conscience.
arguingwithsignposts
Regarding the Mythbusters episode, apparently the President is set to appear on the Dec. 8 episode.
Linda Featheringill
@Ash Can:
You’re so generous tonight. :-)
Actually, the more I think about the historical event, the dirtier that I feel. Yuck. Maybe a hot, soapy shower.
I’ll take the Tanqueray-and-straw into the shower with me.
toes
@Corner Stone:
Agreed.
Linda Featheringill
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Do you think that Ms. Hill might be in some physical danger?
gbear
She probably would have if Mr. Thomas wasn’t still calling Anita’s name in his sleep every night.
Joseph Nobles
@Allan: Bingo.
It’s also apparent the kind of people she and Clarence hang with. They’ve been puffed up so much about this that she feels entitled to the apology and full explanation. It’s good to know she finally got to the point in her Christian walk that she felt confident they could forgive Anita whatever the reason.
PS: The magnificent bastard, Tbogg:
MikeJ
Someone earlier mentioned a Globe story on Hill. HEre’s her “Our Bittersweet 16”.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/11/19/our_bittersweet_16/
El Cid
How can Democrats mobilize the young to turn out & vote?
Weed.
Bubblegum Tate
I would like to extend as an olive branch to Ginny Thomas and her worthless piece of shit husband the opportunity to shut the fuck up and go away, thereby vastly improving this country.
soonergrunt
I think you’re all missing something here.
I may be wrong, but it occured to me that what the Thomases are really after (and make no mistake, it IS both of them) is a warning, not just to any potential trouble makers, but to everyone else. The teabaggers are coming for us. Clarence is one of the few black men that’s OK with them. He knows his place and does what he’s told. Ginny has her machinations and this is her declaring that when the Wingers take control, scores are going to be settled.
Remember that if there’s one thing they all believe, it’s that anyone with whom they disagree who has achieved any success in this world got what they have though underhanded deeds. They would never call the score settling the revenge that it is, they would call it justice. Whatever they tell us it is, whatever they tell themselves it may be, it is revenge, pure and simple.
The more I think about these people the more I am convinced that the only worse thing than them winning is them losing. With Sharron Angle’s 2nd Amendment remedies, this kind of goal-settling I’ve noted here, and the kinds of things we see in ad campaigns around the country, I expect there to be violence as we get closer to the election, and much more violence if they lose.
soonergrunt
@Linda Featheringill: Yes. If not now, then definitely after the election, especially if the Dems hold the house and Senate.
El Cid
@soonergrunt: Reminds me of Bush Jr. triumvirate triumphalism, between winning in 2002 and Katrina in 2005.
Jon H
I can’t help but wonder if Thomas or his wife thinks he could run for President in 2012, and this was a ham-handed effort to clear up an old issue.
Mark S.
@soonergrunt:
I was thinking that today.
JAHILL10
@Anne Laurie: I remember this vividly and I hated Arlen Specter with the burning heat of a thousand suns for how he treated Hill in those hearings. And we aren’t even related!
Seriously though that was the most disgusting public display of organized misogyny I have ever seen. They went after her and she withstood it all like a champ. She is still one of my heroes.
Cris
This is the second time this year I’ve been reminded that winger mythology still holds firm that they were the ones wronged during the Thomas hearings. Jesus, what a bunch of fucking assholes.
burnspbesq
@Ash Can:
:: hands Ash Can a bong and a lighter.
tim serbo
they got a nerve, these guys. from where i sit this doesn’t look much different from W waiting for a representative of the Iraqi people to come to the White House and thank him for laying waste to their country, or from Andy-Bear stamping his trotter and demanding when we libs were going to thank the rich for being such greedy assholes. l’audace, toujours l’audace!
Anya
Notice she said “what you didwith” not to my husband. Maybe she is implying that Anita Hill pursued her husband. Or maybe she just mispoke.
hitchhiker
Still pissed at Biden for effing up those hearings. He was chair of the committee conducting them, he decided that it all had to be finished over a weekend, he was part of the omg let’s just get the hell out of here and screw this woman posse.
Thanks, Joe.
Uloborus
I’m only about halfway through this thread, but lord knows how long it’ll be by the time I finish. Let me point out an explanation that seems to have been neglected:
Mrs. Thomas is a heavily corrupt wealthy Tea Jerker. So she’s almost certainly a raging narcissist. The narcissist isn’t demanding an apology because Hill is lying. She might have convinced herself of that, might now. The apology is because Hill publicly attacked her husband’s reputation. Whether Hill is told the truth is immaterial. Being an obstacle like that makes you rude and a bad person in the narcissist’s eyes, and the narcissist deserves to be apologized to. That’s just how they think. And yes, they’re fantastically petty people who will nurse grudges for decades and then explode randomly.
geg6
THIS.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Linda Featheringill: sure. I doubt that was GT’s intent. These people think of themselves and tough and take-no-prisoners types, but it’s all rhetorical. She’ll go on the Janet Parshall or Mark Levin shows and they’ll all have a circle jerk about how Ginny “stood up” to Anita Hill. But there are a lot of twisted, angry resentful people listening to those shows. Just look at the guy in CA who became convinced Jeebus and the ghost of James Madison wanted him to shoot up the Tides Foundation.
tim serbo
@Uloborus: yeah, and mr justice thomas has always been ready to strike an aggrieved note in his few public remarks. i always figured the mrs encouraged this tendency, stoked its noxious little flame.
sistermoon
@lamh32: Ginny Thomas should consider herself lucky that Anita Hill has so much grace and class.
A less graceful woman would be on the next plane, and she’d be bringing a ghetto beatdown…
Faux News
Just because Ginny Thomas has a freezer for a vagina it’s no reason for her to hate on Anita Hill.
shortstop
@JAHILL10: Indeed. This is bringing it all back–all the anger, all the disbelief that those smug assholes could sit there and say the things they did.
Here in Illinois, Alan Dixon lost his seat over it (as did many other men nationwide), and I continue to believe it was his referring to women as a “special interest group” that put the nail in his coffin. Pisses me off just to think of it after all this time. Special fucking interest group! Fifty-three percent of the population!
A few years later during the Clinton impeachment circus, I watched Republican after Republican piously denounce Clinton’s sexual excesses and then get nailed for their own: Henry Hyde, Bob Livingston, Helen Chenoweth…and Newt Gingrich, who was doing an aide during the exact same time period in which he put out the Contract on America and went after Clinton’s blow job. Then, as now, I could not believe the disconnect that allowed these jerks to criticize others’ infidelities in public while mirroring them in private. All of it made me think of Teddy Kennedy during the Thomas confirmation hearings: the man kept his head down, said freaking nothing, and almost never looked up from his papers. He actually had the self-awareness to know he was the absolute last person who should be questioning Anita Hill on this. Catch a Republican having that kind of awareness.
Admiral_Komack
@JPL:
“Clarence Thomas’ wife on the other hand needs years of therapy to overcome whatever ails her.”
Maybe Mrs. Thomas isn’t impressed with Long Dong.
calling all toasters
@soonergrunt: What, drive-by shootings from their Medicare scooters?
Admiral_Komack
@Jon H:
Clarence Thomas 2012
“A pubic hair in every Coke can.”
Tehanu
Yeah, some olive branch. Ginny apparently thinks that “offering an olive branch” means “threatening to brain someone with a big stick.” Talk about making your own reality.
hilzoy
@SteveinSC: “Jamie what’s his name, law professor and congressman from Maryland said that Clarence “Uncle Tom” Thomas has such a narrow view of the Constitutional ban on laws establishing religion, that he believes states actually do have the right to create established religions, since the First Amendment only applies to the “Federal Government.”
Isn’t this, um, true? I believe that some of the states had established religions well into the 19th century.
Otherwise: for some reason I find myself wondering what on earth it must be like to be Clarence Thomas, watching your wife bend herself out of shape over something that is (I assume) true. Does it bother him at all, or is he so used to believing six impossible things before breakfast that it no longer registers?
asiangrrlMN
Wow. That’s just cold and chilling.
@arguingwithsignposts: Awww! Lady Smudge is bee-yew-tee-ful! Needed that.
@soonergrunt: I gotta agree with you, soonergrunt. I mean, look how they freaked the fuck out after Obama was elected. If they lose again…yeah, it’s not gonna be pretty. How you feeling?
Allan
@Anya: I noticed that too.
I figure that Thomas lied to Ginny that he and Anita had a consensual relationship and when he broke it off she sought revenge.
DC10
OK, now I have the urge to send this ugly obnoxious crazy beyotch some 6-packs of Coke with nasty hair all over them.
Maybe Uncle Thomas has been using the trauma of his “high tech lynching” as the excuse why he can’t “perform” with Gin-Gin anymore.
Uloborus
@hilzoy:
Again, no. Narcissist’s viewpoint is that it’s never THEIR fault. The real crime is that you stopped me from bagging the biggest quail of my hunting career when you put your face in the way of my shotgun. You’ll see this attitude a lot among conservatives. That really, honestly is how they view the world. Only their side matters.
Emma
Most of the words I’m thinking can’t be printed. So I’m going to go with effing loser teabagging stupid a$s b*tch. I mean, how dare she?! And her husband needs to reign her in or resign. FWIW.
Emma
@DC10: Now THAT would be funny.
FlipYrWhig
@Will:
Maybe Ginny Thomas was hoping to convince Anita Hill to go out on her boat full of dildoes.
soonergrunt
@calling all toasters: Grin. To be fair though, there’s quite a field of fire from those things, having no windows and all. I think the younger ones might be the problem though.
@asiangrrlMN: I’m holding together. I was pretty tired and sick yesterday, but I got my old job back a couple of weeks back and have been plugging away. Just can’t keep a good man down. Or me for that matter.
Emma
@sistermoon: Ghetto?
soonergrunt
@FlipYrWhig: Get Hill to call back and then edit the tape so it sounds like an apology or admission of guilt? Where are Breitbart and O’Keefe?
Emma
@JAHILL10: Absolutely agreed. I was just talking about those hearings this week.
Sly
@hilzoy:
The last state to abolish its state religion statute was Massachusetts in 1833. After the 14th Amendment passed, the Supreme Court began “incorporating” various provisions of the Bill of Rights to comply with the Due Process Clause. The first right to be incorporated was the protection against the seizure of property without just compensation (5th Amendment) in 1897. The last was the 2nd Amendment, which happened earlier this year with McDonald v. Chicago. The Establishment Clause was incorporated in 1947 with Everson v. Board of Education.
The principle author of the Due Process Clause, Rep. John Bingham, argued that the language of the clause incorporates the entirety of the first eight amendments. The Court never took that position (except for Hugo Black), but the result of the last 100 years of 14th Amendment jurisprudence is that nearly all of those amendments have been incorporated, but through a kind of ad hoc process. The governing theory is that if a right is “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,” its a fundamental right and therefor incorporated.
Ash Can
@burnspbesq: Thanks, I needed that.
::hands burnspbesq an open bottle of Hennesy’s VSOP with a straw in it::
300baud
God. I know I’m late to the party on this one, but I cannot help but say: my head just fucking exploded. Kablooie. What was left of my brains is now dripping off the ceiling.
And of course she was a lobbyist and the head of the Heritage Foundation. If her professional life has been a parade of reality distortion, why not go 24/7 and be insane around the clock?
I am going to go throw up. After that, I’m going to go throw up again. And then I’m going to try to crazy-glue my skull back together. And then after that I’m going to write Anita Hill a nice note telling her that I appreciate her service to our country, and my sorrow that she has to endure this idiocy.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@Kryptik: Anyone on the blog speculate as to how Anita Hill passed a lie detector test?
On second thought, don’t bother answering that.
Koz
How nice of Mrs. Thomas to help Professor Hill get back at least a little of her reputation.
John Bird
Dear Ms. Hill:
After all these years, I would like to extend an olive branch. In the interests of global peace, I only request that you explain:
1) why you are a little bit nutty;
2) why you are a little bit slutty.
Sincerely,
Your new best friend.
Mike G
@Warren Terra:
So in Thomas’ case, no responsibility at all. He rarely even makes statements for the record on cases, just shows up and pulls a grudge-driven, emotional, politically-slanted “legal opinion” out of his ass.
In the same way that “extending an olive branch” means cold-calling someone at work to demand an apology over an event from two decades ago.
Zuzu's Petals
@Steve:
Jeffrey Toobin says something similar in his book on the USSC, The Nine. Thomas is jovial and friendly and widely liked by staff and other members of the court.
On the other hand, he described Thomas as a man filled with anger and resentment over the treatment he thought he received at the hands of congresspeople, the media, etc., and who carried long grudges and never ever forgot a slight.
debbie
@Anne Laurie:
I worked for that book’s publisher back then, and I had to sell the book to wholesalers and warehouse clubs. I remember apologizing to the buyers (usually women), saying I thought the book was totally bogus but that their customers would likely want it. They’d reply that they understood, that they didn’t like the book either, but that they knew they had to purchase it. I’m not sure if I made a whole lot of commission (because there were so many returns), but talk about dirty money…
I think The Real Anita Hill might have been the first “political” smear job book. Looking back, I can’t believe how low publishing’s sunk since then.
tjmn
Ballz- big brass ones the size of beach balls, indeed.
Jackie
What else can you do after a few hours sitting in a Walmart parking lot but nurse your grudges and plot your revenge?
debbie
I just got a post on Facebook that late yesterday, Ms. Thomas canceled a scheduled appearance on NPR’s On Point Radio.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Cat Lady:
That is how I see it, too. This has been eating at her for 20 years. She has probably thought about making this call every day since shortly after the hearings. It will still be eating away at her 20 years later. If she had accepted her husband had done these things and forgiven him, then she could have moved on, too. If she had truly, in her gut, believed that he hadn’t done these things. She would have dismissed Anita Hill as a crazy woman and moved on. She’s stuck because she can’t let herself believe he was the amoral man who sexually harrassed Hill and lied about it, but deep deep down she suspects he was.
lonesomerobot
headline for accompanying AP article:
PUBLIC SEEKS APOLOGY FROM THOMAS’ WIFE BECAUSE HER HUSBAND IS A TOTAL DOUCHE
also, too- “who put a pubic hair on my coke?’
Cam
There is a new book coming out regarding Thomas that sounds like it will be unflattering. This may help explain the timing of Mrs. Thomas’ “olive branch.” See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/19/AR2010101907062.html?hpid=topnews.
Bobby Thomson
In related news, John Hinckley called the Secret Service asking for an apology.
Ah, well, it will have the desired effect on the eve of elections. Nothing fires up the right wing like a Supreme Court fight.
soonergrunt
@Kryptik: Go to the MSNBC forums and it’s quite different, or at least it was last night around 8:30 PM CST.
artem1s
@Linda Featheringill:
maybe you would get the threat factor if you worked on a college campus. just sayin’ after VA Tech and some other, closer incidents, many who work on college campuses take even marginal sounding ‘messages’ seriously.
AxelFoley
Damn, the unmitigated gall of this broad.
AxelFoley
@Corner Stone:
LOL
But, Corner Stone, you can’t be surprised no one in the “liberal” media isn’t calling her ass out.
Howlin Wolfe
@David Brooks (not that one): She wants to be a football.