Really, how very far right does one have to be in order to think that Pres. Obama has a "hard left" agenda?? Shows just how far out touch with reality these people are. Most of his supporters, including myself, get aggravated that Pres. Obama is too conservative. Pres. Obama didn't even run for election on a left campaign much less a "hard left" one.

And while these Right Wing extremists keep saying that Pres. Obama is dragging this country further into "socialism" they are working overtime at dragging us further into fascism. Especially her husband, Supreme Court Justice Clarance Thomas who is one of the Supreme Court 5 who just signed future elections over to Corporations. I saw her on MSNBC speaking before a Tea Party group. She was talking about how much she loved liberty. The hypocrisy of her words really ticks you off after what her husband did to the "liberty" of the American People's voice and free elections in this nation. With corporations pouring in money to buy elections they are anything but free.

This first article is from Care 2. The second is from the Canadian Press located in Wash. D.C.

Since the Citizens United decision stripped away any pretense that the Supreme Court is somehow insulated from traditional partisan politics, it should come as little surprise to learn that Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has taken an unprecedented step and formed her own nonprofit political advocacy group. The group, Liberty Central Inc, is a lobbying group that organizes activism around a set of conservative core principles aligned with and linked to tea-party activists. According to Thomas, she founded LIberty Central Inc in response to the "hard left" agenda she saw the Obama administration embracing.

The response so far to Virginia Thomas' work has been focused primarily on the effect it may or may not have on the Court. All judges must follow codes of judicial conduct that prohibit a judge from creating even the appearance of partiality, but even under that heightened standard there's no reason to think that Virginia Thomas' work violates any ethical rules for Justice Thomas. But it does raise some interesting issues.

For example, if a corporation like Exxon hires Liberty Central Inc to lobby for or against a particular piece of legislation, and that legislation ends up before the Court with Exxon as a party, does Justice Thomas have a conflict of interest? Must he recuse himself from hearing the case?

Perhaps what this situation does more than anything is highlight the very problem of allowing corporations unfettered access to the political process at a time when judges seem less like detached deciders and more like engaged politicians. We've witnessed the amount of influence corporate dollars buys in Congress. Is it too much to think that access will inevitably bleed into the judicial branch as well, particularly for those judges that have to actively seek re-election? Liberty Central doesn't really provide any answers to these questions as much as it forces them to the surface and keeps them there.



Yeah, Virginia, what this nation needs to insure liberty and that the "constitution means something" is another lobbyist group buying the votes of the Senators on the take. But she at least knows where the money is and in her mind money is the something the U.S. Constitution means.


Wife of conservative Supreme Court justice involved in Tea Party movement

By Lee-Anne Goodman (CP) – 3 days ago

WASHINGTON — United States Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas once raised eyebrows when he performed a wedding ceremony for conservative superstar Rush Limbaugh in the judge's Virginia home.

Sixteen years later, his wife is now at the centre of a simmering political storm for her involvement in the so-called Tea Party movement.

In a move likely to further aggravate tense relations between the White House and the land's highest court, Virginia "Ginni" Thomas has founded a lobby group aligned with the Tea Party supporters who routinely assail Barack Obama's presidency, accusing him of dragging the U.S. irrevocably into socialism.

"We've got to get the constitution back to a place where it means something ... or we're headed for tyranny," she told a conservative gathering last month.

"I have come to know and love the Tea Party patriots."

Liberty Central's mission statement, posted on its website, says the group is "activating informed American patriots who are seeking knowledge of the core founding principles and passionate about preserving freedom and liberty."

Thomas dismissed concerns on Tuesday that her involvement with the Tea Party movement could constitute a conflict of interest for her husband.

"I did not give up my First Amendment rights when my husband became a justice of the Supreme Court," Thomas, who has worked for Republican politicians and the conservative Heritage Foundation in the past, said in a statement.

"My involvement with LibertyCentral.org has been vetted by the Supreme Court ethics office and Liberty Central's own board of directors. There have been many other judges who have spouses that are politically active."

The Thomases have been married since 1987, four years before Clarence Thomas's acrimonious confirmation hearings during which he was accused of sexually harassing a subordinate, lawyer Anita Hill, while chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Famously taciturn, the justice last asked a question from the bench in February 2006. He's considered one of the most conservative judges on the Supreme Court, with its five-to-four conservative-to-liberal ratio.

In 1994, he performed the wedding ceremony for Limbaugh and his third wife, Marta Fitzgerald. The couple divorced 10 years later.

His wife's involvement in Liberty Central has sparked a debate about the propriety of a Supreme court justice's spouse or family members becoming actively involved in a political movement. Some observers have wondered what would happen if corporations or individuals with cases before the Supreme Court have contributed funds to Liberty Central.

It would be up to Clarence Thomas himself to recuse himself from a case if there are concerns about conflict of interest.

Federal judges in lower courts in the United States can be removed from a case over a conflict, but at the Supreme Court level, individual justices make the decision for themselves. Those decisions are not reviewed by a second party.

News about Thomas's involvement in Liberty Central emerges in the wake of a stinging rebuke to Obama from John Roberts, the Supreme Court's chief justice nominated by George W. Bush in 2005.

Roberts was apparently still smarting from Obama's state of the union address in January, when the president chided the Supreme Court for a ruling that will make it easier for foreign corporations to finance political campaigns.

At the University of Alabama last week, Roberts said Obama's first state of the union "degenerated into a political pep rally."

"There is the issue of the setting, the circumstances, and the decorum," he said.

"The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court - according to the requirements of protocol - has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling."

Nonetheless, it's not the first time the Supreme Court has been called out by an influential politician.

Abraham Lincoln angrily criticized the court in 1857 when it made its notorious Dred Scott ruling that all people of African ancestry - slaves and freed slaves alike - could never become citizens of the United States and therefore could not sue in federal court. The court also ruled that the federal government did not have the power to prohibit slavery in its territories.

Lincoln was so disgusted with the ruling that he was spurred into political action. Many historians say Dred Scott helped set the wheels of the Civil War in motion.

Some presidents, on the other hand, have been grateful to the Supreme Court. George W. Bush, for example, became president by virtue of a Supreme Court ruling.

Copyright © 2010 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



Besides the fact that the woman is ignorant about the history of the country and Lincoln having done the same thing about the Court's Dred Scott ruling and she claims she so loves this country and wants so badly to protect it from what she perceives as "tyranny" - I would imagine she is just as ignorant about what is actually contained in the U.S. Constitution. There is nothing in the constitution that provides for lobby groups like yours, lady. But can we really expect more from anyone who hangs out with the likes of Rush Limbaugh?

Weren't these far right conserative Republicans always telling those of us who disagreed with their policies that "if we didn't love this country we should leave it?" Well, there are many of us out here who would be happy and even willing to help you pack and see you to the boats if you would please do what you tell others they should do. However, at least it's one more instance of your consistency in hypocrisy if nothing else.

Quote:

It would be up to Clarence Thomas himself to recuse himself from a case if there are concerns about conflict of interest.

Yeah, that'll happen. And pigs can fly!!


Love, Connie


I edited this as I realized I had repeated myself.

It seems that Virginia Thomas was not the only one speaking Psycho Babble at the Tea Party Convention. This guy may be even more stupid than her and Sarah Palin put together. If that's even possible.

The opening night speaker at the Tea Party convention suggested a return to a "literacy test" to protect America from presidents like Obama—a segregation-era method employed by southern US states to keep blacks from voting. In his speech to attendees, former Republican congressman Tom Tancredo invoked the loaded pre-civil rights era buzzword, saying that President Barack Obama was elected because "we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country." Southern states used literacy tests as part of an effort to deny suffrage to African American voters prior to Johnson-era civil rights laws.


The opening speaker for the Tea Party convention got real out of pocket when he suggested reinstating the literacy test for blacks to stop them from voting.


Speaking of out of pocket activity at the convention, Sarah Palin was also a speaker and she had to use cheat notes just to deliver her $10,000 speech. And remember that Sarah Palin also told us that she can see Russia all the way across the Bering Sea from her house which makes her an expert in foreign affairs. Also makes her either have astonishingly good eyesight with those glasses she wears (hee hee) or lousy knowledge of even simple geography. Even if she lived up by the Bering Straits ( which she doesn't ) she still couldn't see across to Russia. She should have had a map on the palm of her hand when she said that. Still want to have a literacy test?

I think that it's pretty obvious with what those people on Fox News, the Republicans and all their followers including the Tea Party group say and do on a daily basis and what this guy and Sarah Palin say, that it's not the blacks who need to pass a literacy test - it's them. Mainly because if we did have such a test before someone could vote ( or run for office ) our future from that point on would be Bright Blue.

I think this guy should have checked with the RNC before shooting off his mouth because the Republicans along with Rush Limbaugh and Fox News have worked so hard at dumbing down America, especially the south, that they might not want a reinstatment of a literacy test. From all we have seen and heard just this past year alone it definitely could work against them. And haven't the Republicans themselves derided intelligence by referring to educated people as "elitists" as compared to their being the "mainstreet" folks? Me thinks an intelligence or literacy test would not be to their liking at all. Especially since the new head of the Republican National Committee is also a black man.

Tancredo.... complained that "people who could not even spell the word 'vote', or say it in English, put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House. His name is Barack Hussein Obama."

You see, this just proves that he himself could not pass a literacy test. Hellllloooo!! Blacks are still the minority in this nation. There is no way that just the black people alone elected Barack Obama or anyone else for that matter. Geez!! Bring on the literacy test! Maybe those morons listening to you believe that but anyone with intelligence and a grasp on reality wouldn't buy it. Sadly for Tancredo facts can be inconvenient things... but another group that's key to [Obama's victory], college graduates, and college students represented a majority of the U.S. electorate for the first time this year. Obama carried college-educated voters 53 percent to 45 percent for McCain. A lot of non-racist white people voted for Pres. Obama as well.

Does the Tea Party crowd really want to deny the vote to people who can't spell? Well... maybe they should reconsider that :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qSMWTgLPuA

Soooo...here we have a racist idiot who misses the days of hooded robes, burning crosses and lynching telling a crowd of people who can't spell that blacks can't spell. It doesn't get any better than this. It's not only better than reality t.v. but even more ignorant and crazy. Bring on the popcorn, Jethro.

But there is a very sad note to all of this. The guy on the same Tea Party Convention docket as Clarence Thomas's white wife was speaking this way about the man's own race. Maybe Clarence Thomas should consult with his wife and her fellow tea party devotee, Tom Tancredo, as to whether or not he too should take that literacy test along with the rest of his race. Maybe Thomas and his Supreme Court 5 cronies can repeal the civil rights laws and vote the way they feel it should have been voted on back then as they did with their recent decision and reinstate that literacy test. Would be interesting to say the least.

Love, Connie

I wondered about the actions of both Clarence Thomas and his wife as of late. You would think that she being married to a black man and he being black himself they would both be happy that Obama became the first black man elected to be President of the U.S. You would think that they of all people would rejoice over the majority of people of this nation finally overcoming so completely the racial bearer. So I looked up some things about Clarence Thomas and found this article from The Daily Voice which calls itself "black america's daily news source." I think this article explains a lot.

The Biggest Loser
Gregory Allen Howard | Posted March 13, 2009 10:30 AM

Not Sarah Palin. Not John McCain. Not the Republican Party.

No. The biggest loser was Clarence Thomas. Watch him as he sits but a few feet away from Barack Obama at the swearing in ceremony. Watch the furious, suppressed envy in his eyes. The hatred. The jealousy. In his small, simple brain he thinks: Him? That should be me taking the oath of office. I've done everything they wanted.



Before Barack Obama was elected President, the highest-ranking black person in the government was Justice Clarence Thomas. He knew it and acted thusly. The arrogant, wrinkled sneer of his lips said everything about him. Lifetime tenure on the highest court in the world. One of nine. He was a king, and he thought, eventually, the Civil Rights establishment would come and kiss his ring because he could never be eclipsed; no one would ever outrank him. There was but one little bitty problem with his grandiose scenario... Barack Obama.

Justice Thomas has created the Clarence Thomas Story--a narrative, equal parts facts and fiction, and full of anguished victimology. Born po', picked myself up, worked hard, overcame racism, lifted myself up to a college education, shocked to find I got into Yale Law under affirmative action, couldn't get a job after law school because no one believed my grades were earned, but continued to lift myself up working in government, and earned a seat on the Supreme Court. Bootstraps. Did it myself with no help from the dreaded preferences. Once on the court, I rail against those evil racial preferences, citing Booker T. Washington. Lift yourself up by your bootstraps. Don't be stigmatized. Look at me. I'm the paradigm. I did it!! And so on and so forth...


In an appearance at Saddleback Church with Pastor Rick Warren, Barack Obama pierced this largely fictional narrative by saying that Clarence Thomas was not qualified to be on the Supreme Court. Narrative up in flames--paper tiger, exposed. Not qualified. Obama did not mention his ideology. He did not have to. He compared Clarence to Justice Scalia, whom he completely disagreed with, but said Scalia was qualified to be on the court: Thomas was not. And make note, Barack Obama was president of the Harvard Law Review. He has been around brilliant jurists and lawyers his entire professional life.

Thomas has developed a brilliant and effective defense against the attacks on his right wing sellout ideology. "I have a different ideology. I don't have to subscribe to your (the Civil Rights Establishment) thinking. I think for myself." Blah, blah, blah.

"Not qualified."

It must have been like acid was poured on Thomas. And what was left exposed was that the emperor was not wearing any clothes at all. He was the ultimate bad affirmative action hire: no qualifications for the job, in over his head, and could not be fired. When George Bush One announced his appointment, he said, "Thomas is the most qualified man for this job." Huh? Let's take a look at this most qualified man and his "story."

Clarence attended Holy Cross in the sixties when Holy Cross, like other elite universities, was aggressively recruiting Black students. Yes, the tar baby of the right, Affirmative Action, is the reason this heretofore, 99% white elite Catholic University admitted Thomas. Further, Yale Law, where Thomas was accepted also was aggressively recruiting Black students in the sixties. Why? Because the Civil Rights Struggle moved them to inclusiveness; that same Civil Rights struggle that Clarence Thomas has repeated demeaned and belittled. Yes, this hypocrite owes his education at these elite institutions to Black people who got their heads cracked open and died.

First bootstrap pulling--the Civil Rights Movement.

In Clarence's narrative, he says he was "shocked" to find that he had been admitted under AA. He wasn't the least bit shocked. He knew. And once there, if he were "shocked," what stopped him from earning selection to the Yale Law Review? Surely that would have been a way to prove his worth everyone. No, he did not make Law Review. Surely, to prove his worth he finished 1st in his class, or won one of the moot court competitions. Surely, his legal writing was so brilliant that it was published in some other law journal somewhere. No. Surely there must have been something that this brilliant law student did to distinguish himself at Yale... No.

Contrast that to Barack Obama who became not just a member of the Harvard Law Review, but president, the first African American in history. See the difference.

The Clarence Thomas narrative turns into pure fiction after law school. Po' Clarence, one of a handful of black students from Yale Law School, supposedly could not get a job at any of the big law firms because they didn't believe he earned the grades he got at Yale. Oh really. Please note that not one of the other black students who graduated with Clarence has come forward to say that he or she could land the job of their choice after graduating from Yale. Not one.

So Clarence began his career in government working under Missouri Attorney General, John Danforth, the first of many appointments. After a brief stint in the private sector, he then came to Washington as a legislative assistant to now Senator Danforth. Another appointment. A few years later Clarence was appointed to head the EEOC, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, pushed by his sponsor, Senator Danforth. It was in this position that he harassed Anita Hill (one of them lying; guess who).

A few years later, after his right wing ideology had been fully on display at EEOC, and he had proved himself "brave" enough to condemn the Civil Rights Movement, he was rewarded with an appellate judgeship. Yet another appointment. He served there for approximately a year before being nominated to the Supreme Court.

Note, in that year on the appellate bench he never authored a single important opinion. Not one. There are now, and have always been, federal judges who are so brilliant that the Supreme Court cites them in their decisions. There are federal judges who fill up Law Journals, write landmark legal books, many of them legal scholars, moving the law with their brilliance. Not Clarence. No published writings. No books. Nothing. He wrote a couple of inconsequential opinions that no one cared to publish. He was in over his head on this appellate court. Not once, did anyone ever use the words "brilliant" and "Clarence Thomas" in the same sentence.

He would have stayed there and ended his life in mediocre obscurity, rocking back and forth in oral arguments, lost. But Thurgood Marshall died, and George Bush One was President. The circus that was his confirmation followed. The rest, as they say, is history.

If one looks at Clarence's career, it is mediocre by any measure: a few minor jobs in government, an important job, EEOC, which gave him a platform to exhibit his contempt for the very movement that created that position, a year on the appellate court dazzling no one, and then boom--appointed to the Supreme Court. Clarence did not pull himself up by his bootstraps; his sponsors did. He didn't earn anything. It was all given to him on account of his race/ideology.

If a white man with this meager background of minor government bureaucrat, an undistinguished lawyer, non-published legal writing, not a legal author, never even appeared in federal court, had been put up for the Supreme Court, there would have been outrage. Except that he was Black. The right wing proved once again by his appointment, that it cares nothing for qualification, only ideology. And Thomas learned early on that if he parroted right wing policy and condemned the very people and movement that provided him his opportunities, he would be rewarded handsomely. The pay for selling out your people is always good.

But, all the lying, the fiction, the selling out that Thomas used to gain this position has come to naught. Yes, he is still on the court, but his extremism has moved the other justices away from him. Even Scalia, no liberal, has derided Thomas's refusal to honor stare decesis. Clarence's law clerks are picked for him by a conservative legal foundation. They write his opinions for him; the few he is ever given to write that is. He's an embarrassment.

But fortunately, Thomas has been diminished, and rendered a nullity because another black man, elegant, brilliant, beautiful, a man who loves black people as much as Clarence hates them, leapfrogged over him. And this ascendancy by Barack Obama moved even Black Republicans to tears: Colin Powell, Condi Rice, and Juan Williams. Did anyone see Clarence cry?

And Thomas, angry, bitter and unqualified will have to look at this man who revealed him for the fraud that he is for the next 8 years. Once a year at the State of the Union, Thomas will sit just a few feet from Obama. He will have to watch him and listen to him, his eloquence, his command. That will be difficult for Clarence. It will be so painful that Thomas may actually implode; he may even explode. We could only hope...

Anyone who thinks that Thomas's envy and hatred is conjecture, or a mere fantasy, need only look at Clarence's December attempt to push one of those frivolous Obama citizenship cases on the Supreme Court docket. This is after Justice Souter had already turned it down. Yes, the Silent Justice, as he is called because he rarely opens his mouth during oral arguments, sprung to life on this one. He got excited about the chance to send Obama back to the Senate, vitiate a landslide election, and remain the black king in Washington. It didn't matter that every single court, in every jurisdiction, at every judicial level, had rejected these silly suits. What Clarence did by trying to get this foolishness docketed after another member of the Court turned it down, never, ever happens on the Court.

Clarence Thomas's frustration, anger, and bitterness, and jealousy had now bled into his not-so-nimble brain; it affected his already risible judgment. Can you imagine what that conference was like? Clarence had to look at Souter, liberal, but respected even by the right wing of the Court, who rejected this petition, and his fellow esteemed qualified jurists, and try to sell them on accepting this utterly frivolous petition. He only needed three other votes to put it on the docket. Trust me, no one in that room even flirted with the idea of accepting this petition. Those justices must have looked at Clarence with a combination of pity and disbelief. Or, maybe they looked at him more benevolently and thought: Clarence has become insane.

But he is not crazy, he's just... Clarence; Uncle Remus wearing a robe: an embittered, eclipsed, forgotten Negro-- outted by the most admired man in the world, the first African American President, a Black man who earned his way to the top, a self-made man, not an appointed man, who pulled himself up by his bootstraps, and never forgot or rejected his people.

And Clarence Thomas? Once a footstool of the right wing, now just a footnote, He will be known now and forever for what he really is: The Unqualified Justice. Thank goodness Obama has pulled that robe off, and laid bare this pathetic little man who thought himself a king, but was and is, only a pawn. And Thomas knows only too well that the real king resides down the block.



Gregory Allen Howard is an award-winning screenwriter who wrote Remember the Titans and Ali.

This may be the ultimate in Republican hypocrisy. Clarence Thomas claiming he "pulled himself up by his own bootstraps" when he actully got where he is at due to Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson's Affirmative Action law and took every possible advantage of it that he could. It's his problem that he chose the wrong political party because he should have known with the history of the Republican party and their not voting in favor of one equality or civil rights bill that he would never be anything more than their token black. Same thing applies to the new token black on the block, the head of the Republican National Committee who was selected for the same reason that Sarah Palin was. The dems had a female, Hillary Clinton, 2nd in line for the nomination so they ran and grabbed Palin and McCain later admitted that he knew nothing about her and neither did the GOP. Now they can't get rid of her. LOL Obama won the presidency so at their convention the GOP appointed their token black man. Campaigning and playing political games is all the Republican Right knows.

Which reminds me about that Republican motto of "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" what they don't tell you is "by the way, we intend to take those boots away from you."

I do find all of this very sad for some reason. Can't put my finger on it but then again Clarence Thomas chose his path in life same as Obama did and all the rest of us. Our every action in life determines our future and the future of our world. Obama chose the right path and Thomas is still being "the boy" for the Republicans and complying with their every wish. Still not fit to be a Supreme Court Justice because now he is selling out his nation and no longer just selling out his own race. And it's all to get even with Obama who he has made a scapegoat for all that is wrong in his life and the wrong choices he has always made. He should have been president in his mind. Not obama. It should have been him. Very sad man.

Regarding the reference to Anita Hill in this article. For those who may not know, she was an aide and she accused Clarence Thomas of sexually harassing her. This was major issue brought up by the committee at his Supreme Court nomination hearings in Congress. Thomas denied it and of course, what else is new in D.C., he was never held accountable for it.


Love, Connie

This comes form the Museum of Broadcast Communications regarding the televised congressional hearings on the allegations of sexual harrassment by Clarence Thomas's co-worker at EEOC, Prof. Anita Hill in 1991. During that hearing Thomas played the race card by stating the hearings were " a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves." Not only playing the race card but also once again creating that image for himself of being a self-made man who had no help at all getting where he was. He never thought for himself either and anything he contributed in the way of law was written for him by his staff. They did not come from his own thought or words. I remember this hearing and some very obscene things that Thomas said and did to Anita Hill came out in those televised hearings.

ANITA HILL-CLARENCE THOMAS HEARINGS

http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/H/htmlH/hill-thomash/hill-thomas.htm




Anita Hill

The Hill-Thomas Hearings, conducted by the United States Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate Prof. Anita Hill's allegations of prior sexual harassment by Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, were televised nationally on American television from 11 October to 13 October 1991. Although the hearings themselves had no legal significance, to many observers they symbolized a public referendum on sexual harassment and other gender inequities in late twentieth-century America. As such, they have been widely credited with increasing public awareness about gender discrimination and motivating female voters during the 1992 congressional elections.

As President George Bush's nominee to replace Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court, Thomas had already been through confirmation hearings during September, 1991, although the Senate Judiciary Committee was unable to make a recommendation to the full Senate after these hearings. Thomas' appointment seemed further jeopardized by 6 October reports in Newsday and on National Public Radio of alleged acts of sexual harassment toward a co-worker from 1981 to 1983. These charges, made by Anita Hill during interviews with the FBI, were apparently leaked to the press just days before the Senate's final vote on Thomas' appointment. Responding to demands from feminist organizations and seven female Democratic members of the House of Representatives, the Senate delayed the vote in order to hear more about Hill's allegations.

During the three days of televised hearings, the Senators and the viewing public heard testimony from both Hill and Thomas, as well as their supporters. Hill referred to specific incidents of Thomas' behavior, including repeated requests for dates and references to pornographic material. Thomas vehemently denied Hill's allegations and responded with outrage, at one point by calling the hearings "a national disgrace...a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves." So adamant was each sides' accounts that many observers in the press labeled the hearings an example of "He Said, She Said," with both parties offering such vastly differing recollections of events that many wondered if the hearings could ever reveal the truth.

Two days after the hearings ended, with no clear resolution of the discrepancy between Hill's and Thomas' accounts, the Senate voted on Thomas' confirmation. Due to the media coverage of the hearings, public interest in the vote was unusually high, as evidenced by a barrage of phone calls and faxes sent to the capital on this issue. Although opinion polls reported evidence of debate and division among minority groups, including African-Americans and women, they also indicated that a majority of voters supported Thomas. Ultimately, the Senate voted 52-48 in favor of Thomas' confirmation.

The visual imagery and political symbolism of the hearings may have been their most important legacy. In this regard the hearings take their place alongside other memorable television events, including The Army-McCarthy Hearings and the Watergate Proceedings. These events exemplify television's ability to galvanize a national audience around matters of crucial social significance and often they stand as historical markers of significant social and cultural shifts.

Indeed, many feminist groups refer to Anita Hill as the mother of a new wave of awareness of gender discrimination, particularly given the attacks on her credibility that she withstood from the white male senators. Such observers feel that the sight and sounds of a composed, articulate law professor being questioned about her mental state, (some senators and Thomas supporters had theorized that Hill was "delusional") were unconscionable to female viewers who themselves had experienced sexual harassment. Harriett Woods, then president of the National Women's Political Caucus, commented that "Anita Hill focused attention on the fact that there were no women in that Senate panel making decisions about people's lives."

As is true for so many cultural memories in the United States, the televised Hill-Thomas hearings etched some clear and unforgettable images into the minds of the American public. To those observers who did not believe Hill's claims, the hearings represented the gravity of such allegations in a society where gender politics can be divisive. To Hill's sympathizers, the memory of a lone women reluctantly speaking out about past painful experiences to a room full of bewildered and unsympathetic men may have been one reason why an unprecedented 29 women were elected in the subsequent congressional elections.

- Vanessa Beasley




FURTHER READING

Brock, David. The Real Anita Hill: The Untold Story. New York: Free Press, 1993.

Cohn, Bob. "Dirt Trail." New Republic (Washington, D.C.), January 6, 1992.

Corry, John. "Playmates of the Month." American Spectator (Bloomington, Indiana), January, 1995.

Chrisman, Robert, and Robert L. Allen, editors. Court of Appeal: The Black Community Speaks Out on the Racial and Sexual Politics of Clarence Thomas vs. Anita Hill. New York: Ballantine Books, 1992.

Danforth, John. Resurrection: The Confirmation of Clarence Thomas. New York: Viking, 1994.

Garment, Suzanne. Scandal: The Culture of Mistrust in American Politics: Afterword: On Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas. New York: Times Books, 1992.

"Hearing Raises TV Ratings." New York Times (New York), October 13, 1991.

Mayer, Jane. Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas. Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin, 1994.

Morrison, Toni, editor. Race-ing Justice, En-Gendering Power: Essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, and the Construction of Social Reality. New York: Pantheon Books, 1992.

Phelps, Timothy M. Capitol Games: Clarence Thomas, Anita Hill, and the Story of a Supreme Court Nomination. New York: Hyperion, 1992.

"Rare Drama--And Rare Restraint." New York Times (New York), Oct 11, 1991.

Smith, Christopher E. Critical Judicial Nominations and Political Change: The Impact of Clarence Thomas. Westport: Praeger, 1993.

Smitherman-Donaldson, Geneva, editor. African American Women Speak Out on Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas. Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State University Press, 1995.

Steenland, Sally. "On Trial: Courtroom Television." Television Quarterly (New York), Winter, 1992.

"The Hearings on Television." New York Times (New York), September 13, 1991.

Thompson, David. "Our Process (Our Show)." Film Comment (New York), January-February, 1992.

United States Congress Committee on the Judiciary. The Complete Transcripts of the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill Hearings. Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 1994.



See also U.S. Congress


Love, Connie