November 13, 2017

"I keep seeing articles mentioning that Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas of 'sexual harassment,' and lumping him in with Harvey Weinstein et al."

Writes David Bernstein (at Instapundit).
Hill accused Thomas of asking her out insistently, and making several lewd comments about porn movies, pubic hairs, and his own sexual prowess. Hill herself acknowledged that her allegations didn’t amount to “sexual harassment” as defined by law, just that they made her uncomfortable and she thought them inappropriate. I don’t want to relitigate the Thomas-Hill he said-she said, but even accepting Hill’s allegations at face value, they were nothing approaching what Weinstein or some of the others who have been in the spotlight lately, have been accused of–no assault, no battery, no exposing himself, no quid pro quo, no drugging victims, no shenanigans with minors. Surely we want to distinguish between those allegations and alleged rude and obnoxious behavior.
Bernstein only links to one article, "Anita Hill on Weinstein, Trump, and a Watershed Moment for Sexual-Harassment Accusations" by Jane Mayer at The New Yorker. It's a short article, but it mentions Trump 10 times. My first question was: Does it mention Bill Clinton? Because the Clarence Thomas hearings raised the national consciousness of sexual harassment, but it happened for political reasons at the time, and for equally political reasons the issue got suppressed again when it seemed more important — to the kind of people you'd think would want to forefront the issue* — to protect Bill Clinton. Even during the 2016 presidential campaign — the one Trump won — it was necessary to keep protecting the old President because his wife, who'd vigorously defended him against "bimbo eruptions," was (for some insane reason) the Democratic Party's candidate for President.

The answer to my question — does the New Yorker article mention Bill Clinton? — is no. I did my search of the page yesterday when I first noticed the article, and because of the Trump-but-not-Clinton focus, I declined to read it. I have been angry about the politicization of sexual harassment for 20 years. I'm trying to force myself to read Mayer's article now (because Bernstein linked to it), but it's almost impossible for me. Okay. You can do it....
In a phone interview, [Anita] Hill emphasized that sexual-harassment cases live and die on the basis of “believability,” and that, in order for the accusers to prevail, “they have to fit a narrative” that the public will buy....
So... essentially: politics. Hill was believed by the people who wanted to keep Clarence Thomas off the Supreme Court and not by those who wanted him on. Paula Jones was disbelieved by those who wanted to keep Bill Clinton in the White House, but believed by those who wanted him out.

Hill knows this:
Her case, like those of the women who accused Trump, she says, “was cast as a political story.” In such situations, “everything gets interpreted through a political lens, and it makes it almost impossible” for people to seriously consider whether the accused harasser “is the right person to represent you. It just becomes ‘This is our guy’ and ‘people are trying to bring him down.’ ”
_____________________

* Gloria Steinem in 1998: "We would not be doing our job if we didn't take into account that this president and his policies are crucial to the lives and welfare of the majority of women in this country. That's not bending over backwards: that's being sensible. Having said that, if Clinton had raped women, beaten up Hillary - real private sins would not be forgiven, no matter what the value of the public behaviour." Real sins? Real sins? What the hell?

128 comments:

tim in vermont said...

Having said that, if Clinton had raped women, - GlowStick

Takes a lot of studious ignorance of the evidence to come to any other conclusion than that Clinton, with the evidence against him, would have been convicted in a court of law were not a powerful Democrat.

tim in vermont said...

But the most important thing is that we can never vindicate Paula Jones, Kathleen Wiley, Juanita Broaddrick, or even that woman who accused him of sexual assault, and perhaps rape when he was a student at Oxford, among so many others.

The pain of admitting complicity in enforcing the silence of abused women for twenty years is just too much for Democrats and the press to bear.

Lance said...

Her case, like those of the women who accused Trump, she says, “was cast as a political story.”

Had Hill publicly accused Thomas prior to the confirmation hearings, I imagine her "story" would have received less political treatment.

MikeR said...

I was young at the time. Why was any of that a reason to keep Thomas off the Supreme Court? They have to be, like, saints? Or was the whole country in denial about these kinds of things in those days?

Quaestor said...

I notice this post has a lot of tags. It needs only one.

tcrosse said...

real private sins would not be forgiven

Are there any private sins ?

Hunter said...

Real sins? What the hell?

Obligatory:

It wasn't sexual assault sexual assault.

n.n said...

Are there any private sins ?

Yes. Those sins committed, protected, defended, obscured under a layer of privacy.

tim in vermont said...

I think that this whole cascade of accusations comes from seeing that the accusers managed to avoid the fate of Clinton's accusers, accusations, echoed and approved in the press, about dragging "a hundred dollar bill through a trailer park."

Let's see how one of our own sainted Democrat commenters talked about Paula Jones, who, BTW, got a large settlement from Bill Clinton.

Paula Jones was quite accustomed to be asked to perform blowjobs, as Bob Bennett learned in pre-trial discovery. She gave five blowjobs to men at a keg party one year before Clinton asked her to "kiss it".

I can't imagine why Weinstein's accusers would have been reluctant to go public. Or even O'Reilly's, for that matter.

tim in vermont said...

Basically, the Clinton defense in so many of these cases boiled down to "you can't rape a whore."

Kevin said...

Well there’s rape and there’s rape-rape. How do I know this? Because Whoopi Goldberg suffered no repercussions and is still on TV after saying it.

cubanbob said...

Thomas was accused of boorish behavior and the person who made the accusation never claimed he physically raped or molested her. Clinton was not only found guilty of perjury but was accused by several woman openly of rape. To conflate the two demonstrates the dishonesty of the person conflating the two.

rehajm said...

We need a common usage sexual assault dictionary so we're all on the same page. Let's start with rape, rape rape, peccadilloes, real sins.

...if Clinton had raped women, beaten up Hillary... Does Gloria mean the threshold to be both those things or just one?

Original Mike said...

Thomas/Hill reminds me more of Roy Moore than Harvey Weinstein.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Well. now we have the Menendez Line which is partisan politic's version of baseball's Mendoza Line. If you are a Dem, sex crimes and graft are not relevant to one's qualifications to serve in the US Senate meaning you are above the Menendez Line. If you are a Repub, there is no way you can be above the Menendez Line and you must be run out of town.

tim in vermont said...

Paula Jones was a campaign volunteer, but to Bill Clinton, her aspirations of "making a difference" by working for a candidate she believed in was nothing more than so much noise going on the the skull of a sex object. Just like when Juanita Broaddrick wanted to discuss nursing home policies, and Clinton completely disregarded her benighted belief that it was her ideas that mattered, not her pussy.

Michael said...

I don't know how many times we have to go over this, but Clarence Thomas is a house nigger and is not a real African American and is a woman hating sambo tool of the white supremacist alt right. He essentially raped Anita and any push back on this is racist.

JAORE said...

Our youngest son, in his 20s, was aware of the multiple accusers of Bill Clinton and Hillary's role in destroying those women. He said that, during the 2016 election season, he would mention it to his peers. They had no knowledge of the accusations and/or denied they ever happened.

They were, to a person "With Her".

TrespassersW said...

Shorter Steinem: "It's always different when a Democrat does it. Always."

Xmas said...

...if Clinton had raped women, beaten up Hillary...

Actually, if you want to go down this path, how many people would disqualify Hillary as a presidential candidate if the stories about her physical violence towards Bill were more widely known.

NY Post story

I mean, it is different for women. They aren't ostracized for domestic violence.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Bill's Crimes:

Eileen Wellstone, 19-year-old English woman who said Clinton sexually assaulted her after she met him at a pub near the Oxford where the future President was a student in 1969. A retired State Department employee, who asked not to be identified, confirmed that he spoke with the family of the girl and filed a report with his superiors. Clinton admitted having sex with the girl, but claimed it was consensual. The victim's family declined to pursue the case;
In 1972, a 22-year-old woman told campus police at Yale University that she was sexually assaulted by Clinton, a law student at the college. No charges were filed, but retired campus policemen contacted by Capitol Hill Blue confirmed the incident. The woman, tracked down by Capitol Hill Bluelast week, confirmed the incident, but declined to discuss it further and would not give permission to use her name;
In 1974, a female student at the University of Arkansas complained that then-law school instructor Bill Clinton tried to prevent her from leaving his office during a conference. She said he groped her and forced his hand inside her blouse. She complained to her faculty advisor who confronted Clinton, but Clinton claimed the student ''came on'' to him. The student left the school shortly after the incident. Reached at her home in Texas, the former student confirmed the incident, but declined to go on the record with her account. Several former students at the University have confirmed the incident in confidential interviews and said there were other reports of Clinton attempting to force himself on female students;
Broaddrick, a volunteer in Clinton's gubernatorial campaign, said he raped her in 1978. Mrs. Broaddrick suffered a bruised and torn lip, which she said she suffered when Clinton bit her during the rape;
From 1978-1980, during Clinton's first term as governor of Arkansas, state troopers assigned to protect the governor were aware of at least seven complaints from women who said Clinton forced, or attempted to force, himself on them sexually. One retired state trooper said in an interview that the common joke among those assigned to protect Clinton was "who's next?". One former state trooper said other troopers would often escort women to the governor's hotel room after political events, often more than one an evening;
Carolyn Moffet, a legal secretary in Little Rock in 1979, said she met then-governor Clinton at a political fundraiser and shortly thereafter received an invitation to meet the governor in his hotel room. "I was escorted there by a state trooper. When I went in, he was sitting on a couch, wearing only an undershirt. He pointed at his penis and told me to suck it. I told him I didn't even do that for my boyfriend and he got mad, grabbed my head and shoved it into his lap. I pulled away from him and ran out of the room."
Elizabeth Ward, the Miss Arkansas who won the Miss America crown in 1982, told friends she was forced by Clinton to have sex with him shortly after she won her state crown. Last year, Ward, who is now married with the last name of Gracen (from her first marriage), told an interviewer she did have sex with Clinton but said it was consensual. Close friends of Ward, however, say she still maintains privately that Clinton forced himself on her.

I'm sure they are all lying.

more...

rehajm said...

peccadillo: pec·ca·dil·lo noun consensual affair, sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape, rape rape committed by William Jefferson Clinton. Reserved to describe same committed by present and future Democrats. Cannot be committed by Republicans (see rape rape).

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Paula Corbin, an Arkansas state worker, filed a sexual harassment case against Clinton after an encounter in a Little Rock hotel room where the then-governor exposed himself and demanded oral sex. Clinton settled the case with Jones recently with an $850,000 cash payment.
Sandra Allen James, a former Washington, DC, political fundraiser says Presidential candidate-to-be Clinton invited her to his hotel room during a political trip to the nation's capital in 1991, pinned her against the wall and stuck his hand up her dress. She says she screamed loud enough for the Arkansas State Trooper stationed outside the hotel suite to bang on the door and ask if everything was all right, at which point Clinton released her and she fled the room. When she reported the incident to her boss, he advised her to keep her mouth shut if she wanted to keep working. Miss James has since married and left Washington. Reached at her home last week, the former Miss James said she later learned that other women suffered the same fate at Clinton's hands when he was in Washington during his Presidential run.
Christy Zercher, a flight attendant on Clinton's leased campaign plane in 1992, says Presidential candidate Clinton exposed himself to her, grabbed her breasts and made explicit remarks about oral sex. A video shot on board the plane by ABC News shows an obviously inebriated Clinton with his hand between another young flight attendant's legs. Zercher said later in an interview that White House attorney Bruce Lindsey tried to pressure her into not going public about the assault.
Kathleen Willey, a White House volunteer, reported that Clinton grabbed her, fondled her breast and pressed her hand against his genitals during an Oval Office meeting in November, 1993. Willey, who told her story in a 60 Minutes interview, became a target of a White House-directed smear campaign after she went public.


We were assured by Hillary, George Clinonotpolis(D), and that freaky big mouth bald dude that these women are all lying trailer trash.

LYNNDH said...

Businesses consider words spoken as Sexual Harassment. Not just actions and not just by superiors. Anyone, anytime, anywhere at work. Even standing wrong can be construed as Sexual Harassment.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Clinton's sins would have been real if he had raped and beaten Hillary. Since he confined his assaults to nobodies, we don't care.

Yep. That's the Sisterhood.

Original Mike said...
Thomas/Hill reminds me more of Roy Moore than Harvey Weinstein.

11/13/17, 9:16 AM

Yes, that's what I'm thinking too.




Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Dilute is the name of the hack D-press game.

New book coming out:
By Bill Clinton and Harvey Weinstein:

"How to sexually harass, rape, and savage women for slooge and power, and get away with it."


SDaly said...

People look more skeptically at allegations that are old and difficult to establish -- or refute -- that come out shortly before an election / lifetime appointment.

Michael K said...

Had Hill publicly accused Thomas prior to the confirmation hearings, I imagine her "story" would have received less political treatment.

She was to be a secret witness who was not going to have her identity disclosed. She gave the story to the staff with that understanding. The Democrat staff outed her and she was made famous. The Biden chaired committee declined to allow any of the witnesses who had volunteered to support Thomas to testify. A number of them were women with long association with him. Hill was the only one they could find to testify against him.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

" If you are a Dem, sex crimes and graft are not relevant to one's qualifications to serve in the US Senate meaning you are above the Menendez Line. If you are a Repub, there is no way you can be above the Menendez Line and you must be run out of town."

Exactly. If Alabama voters ignore the media reports and vote Moore in, they'll be called fake Christians and pedophile enablers. Nobody in the media called Massachusetts voters out for supporting Ted Kennedy for decades after he left a woman to die.

I still don't know if Moore did it. What I do know is leftists will lie, murder, cheat and steal when it comes to obtaining power.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

DB@H, where's Gennifer Flowers?

Otto said...

Ann deconstructing shit. A good Franklin School graduate.

tim in vermont said...

DB@H, where's Gennifer Flowers?

Consensual, a peer, and nobody's business. Why mix it up by throwing in consensual relationships. Personally, I draw the line before Monica too, but it turns out that many of the new Puritans here find that type of relationship beyond the pale too, but only in the case of LCK and others, not Bill.

rcocean said...

"She was to be a secret witness who was not going to have her identity disclosed."

I didn't believe Hill because none of her story made sense. There was no Thomas pattern of bad behavior toward other women in the office. In fact, the other women (except one) testified on the Judge Thomas's side.

Hill also followed Thomas to another agency and worked for him there - despite the so called harassment. When she left DC, she kept in touch with Thomas and socialized with him - and asked him address her law class in Oklahoma. She also said NOTHING when he was nominated to Fed Court of Appeals.

But suddenly, when he got nominated for SCOTUS, she decided to secretly scuttle his nomination, and then was forced out in the open.

And I remember NPR's Nina Totenberg saying over and over that the charges weren't politically motivated because Hill was a "Reagan Republican" - which was a LIE.

tim in vermont said...

Funny too how many people take Clinton's word for it if he denies something, as if he hadn't been caught on tape to one of his "paramours" saying "Deny, deny, deny."

Otto said...

Sorry Frankfurt School

tim in vermont said...

I wouldn't be surprised if Anita Hill was Thomas's "work wife."

chickelit said...

Isn't creepy how the Clintons always just seep back into the forefront of the next erection cycle?

Todd said...

For the Democrats/leftists, hearsay that a conservative said inappropriate things is JUST LIKE a liberal raping a women. JUST.THE.SAME. Or at least they want the plebs to think that way.

Mike Sylwester said...

The most important book about the dispute between Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas is David Brock’s The Real Anita Hill: The Untold Story, published in 1993. Although Brock has disavowed his book, it is a journalistic masterpiece. Anybody who comes across this book should take the opportunity to read it, even though the dispute happened long ago. It’s one of the best books I ever read.

Anita Hill was an incompetent lawyer. Her understanding of the law was mediocre, and she could not write well. Her main qualification was that she was an African-American woman. She would work at one place until her incompetence became too obvious, and then she would go to work at some other place.

During 1982, she was working in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). For a while she worked under the supervision of a lawyer named Chris Roggerson, who was the Executive Assistant of Clarence Thomas, who was the EEOC’s Chairman. Roggerson was a notorious sexual harasser, and he harassed Hill. During that time, Hill confided to a lawyer friend, Susan Hoerchner, about Roggerson’s harassment.

Hill and Hoerchner drifted apart in about 1984.

In 1991, when Thomas was nominated to the Supreme Court, Hoerchner telephoned Hill out of the blue and asked whether Thomas was the supervisor who had sexually harassed her. Hill responded ambiguously, and Hoerchner took that response as a confirmation. In the following days, Hoerchner secretly passed this false accusation to various people who were trying to stop the nomination of Thomas.

As the situation developed, Hill decided to go along with the false accusation — but on the condition that she herself remain anonymous. The idea was that when the anonymous accusation eventually reached Thomas, then he himself would be compelled to withdraw from his nomination rather than endure public embarrassment.

As it turned out, though, Thomas stubbornly refused to withdraw from his nomination, and then the secret false accuser’s name — Anita Hill — was leaked to the press. From that point on, Hill felt compelled to press forward with her false story.

Thomas was completely innocent, and so he prevailed. The Senate approved his nomination, and he became a Supreme Court justice.

Brock’s book tells this story in comprehensive, well documented detail. After I began reading it, I could not put it down, because it was written so superbly.

Hill is a despicable person, a character assassin. She ended up teaching law at the University of Oklahoma. As throughout her career, she is incompetent in this professional position too.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

exiledonmainstreet,

Compare and contrast Roy Moore and Kevin Spacey. Both are alleged to have had sex with 14-year-olds. Spacey's alleged victim, though, is getting slammed on Twitter by people mad that they won't be getting their House of Cards. No one is slamming Moore's alleged victim, at least outside Alabama. It's exactly like Polanski: You can do whatever you like if you're an "artist," or of course a Democratic politician. (Though Clinton, to do him justice, was no ephebophile -- even Monica was of age, though only just.)

chickelit said...

The Clintons aren't going to go away until until whatever it is that seeps gets drained. Like pus.

Mike Sylwester said...

Continuing my comment at 9:47 AM

In 1982, Anita Hill confided to fellow lawyer Susan Hoerchner that she was being sexually harassed by her supervisor at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). That supervisor was Chris Roggerson, the Executive Assistant to EEOC Chairman Clarence Thomas.

In 1983, Hill was passed over for a promotion at EEOC and so she departed to become a law teacher at Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma, where her family lived. Thomas helped her get that new job. Away from Washington DC, Hill did not communicate any more with Hoerchner .

Then on July 1, 1991, Hoerchner phoned Hill out of the blue. Thomas had just been nominated to the Supreme Court, and Hoerchner remembered mistakenly that Thomas was the supervisor who sexually harassed Hill. Hoerchner asked Hill whether she intended to inform Congress about “that pig” (not naming Thomas). Perhaps puzzled at first, Hill brushed away the question and then responded in an ambiguous manner.

Accepting this as a confirmation, Hoerchner then asked Hill to release her from the oath of secrecy that Hill had imposed in 1982, when Hill had confided to Hoerchner about Roggerson’s sexual harassment. Hill agreed to release her from the oath, but only on the condition that Hoerchner would not identify Hill as the harassed woman.

During this 1991 telephone conversation between Hill and Hoerchner, Thomas was not named. The sexual harasser was called simply “the pig”.

In the following days, Hoerchner informed anti-Thomas-nomination activists that she personally knew a woman, who requested anonymity, who had been sexually harassed by Thomas.

That was the beginning of the sexual-harassment witch-hunt against Thomas, who was completely innocent of the accusations and who always had treated Hill with supportive kindness.

rcocean said...

Anita Hill was a liberal Democrat (Black women vote 90-95% Democrat) and a Lesbian. The other lie was that Hill "was damaging her career, and had nothing to gain" by testifying against Thomas.

Of course, she became a darling of the Left, and got lucrative speaking gigs and a nice tenured professorship at Berkeley and then Brandeis. Quite a move up from Oklahoma.

tim in vermont said...

Bill Clinton is the original sin of the modern Democrat Party.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

The Roy Moore thing seems like more of the same. Why after 40 years does someone sudden ly come out of the woodwork? Everybody in Alabama knew who Moore was because of the Ten Commandments issue and then the refusal to recognize Obergfell. Everybody.

And I can't help feeling there's an almost "everybody does it" defense welling up in Progressive circles, to use as a defense of people like Clinton and Weinstein. I hear a lot of these accused guys now saying it was different time. (Not Moore, of course. He just says he didn't generally date teenagers. Now that was a different time for 30-year-olds!) Now with the impulse of "journalists" to go after Thomas again, trying to tie him to the truly reprehensible actors who have been outed, while continuing to ignore the Clinton origin of all this "confusion" over how many gropes the Official Feminists will allow, tells me there is nothing but politics driving this.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

“He that is without sin among you, let him first cast...Anita Hill.

Henry said...

I have been angry about the politicization of sexual harassment for 20 years.

Wendell Berry has an admirable essay on the hearings in his book of essays Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community

In the government-sponsored quarrel between Clarence
Thomas and Anita Hill, public life collided with
private life in a way that could not have been resolved
and that could only have been damaging. The event
was depressing and fearful both because of its violations
of due process and justice and because it was an attempt
to deal publicly with a problem for which there is no
public solution. It embroiled the United States Senate
in the impossible task of adjudicating alleged offense
that had occurred in private, that had no
witnesses and no evidence. If the hearing was a "lynching,"
as Clarence Thomas said it was, that was because
it dealt a public punishment to an unconvicted and unindicted
victim. But it was a peculiar lynching, all the
same, for it dealt the punishment equally to the accuser.
It was not a hearing, much less a trial; it was a storytelling
contest that was not winnable by either participant.

Its only result was damage to all participants and
to the nation. Public life obviously cannot be conducted
in that way, and neither can private life. It was a public
procedure that degenerated into a private quarrel. It
was a private quarrel that became a public catastrophe.
Sexual harassment, like most sexual conduct, is extremely
dangerous as a public issue. A public issue,
properly speaking, can only be an issue about which
the public can confidently know. Because most sexual
conduct is private, occurring only between two people,
there are typically no witnesses. Apart from the possibility
of a confession, the public can know about it
only as a probably unjudgeable contest of stories. (In
those rare instances when a sexual offense occurs before
, reliable witnesses, then, of course, it is a legitimate public
issue.)


Berry is a thought-provoking writer because he actually believes his own philosophy is willing to accept the challenges it presents him. Worries about due process seem so quaint in today's world.

Mike Sylwester said...

Continuing my comment at 9:49 AM

David Brock’s book The Real Anita Hill reports much criticism of Hill’s teaching from her academic supervisors and colleagues and from her law students. Following are a few examples:

Professor Dennis Olson, the associate dean of the Dallas-Fort Worth School of Law:

[quote]

I was on the faculty at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. Anita Hill was a colleague of mine in Oklahoma. …. Students commented to me that she as particularly ineffective in class and was not concerned about improving her performance. She appeared to recognize her protected position as a black woman in an era of a affirmative action and to use that protected for all it was worth — accelerated promotions, specially arranged teaching schedules, etc.

[end quote]

OU law student Todd Cone:

[quote]

Before coming to the University of Oklahoma Law School, I was forewarned to stay away from classes taught by Prof. Hill, because she was very liberal and did not take kindly to males. …

A third year female law student said Pro. Hill had a “really poor attitude.” She believed that the black students received favorable treatment both in class and in grades. ….

A third year male law student found her “racist in class”. …

Another third year student … stated … that she did have a “major chip on her shoulder”. … he found that she “blew gender issues out of proportion”. … during class, when a student would use the pronoun “he”, Prof. Hill would jump all over the student and question how they knew it was a man. ….

All of the students said she was subject to wild mood swings.

[end quote]

UO law student Christopher Wilson:

[quote]

Another graduate of OU law school told me of an instance in contracts class. … It was a case in which a woman sued a man … for child support when there was no proof he was the father. The woman was awarded child support. When asked how this judgment was fair, Ms. Hill responded that women should be supported regardless of proof.

[end quote]

Roger Tuttle, Dean of Oral Roberts University:

[quote]

As a full professor on the faculty, I observed her performance, and later as Dean I was her supervisor. She was not, at that time, a competent teacher, lacking in experience of handling students in the classroom and in her ability to adequately convey knowledge to the students. ….. she would react in anger with the students and remonstrate with them, both publicly and privately. She attempted to use her position as a teacher to intimidate and harass students. … Her general posture was … a person who would not be disagreed with under any circumstances.

[end quote]

OU law student Jim Wagoner:

[quote]

Either she didn’t know or understand the material or she wasn’t communicating it. Everybody in the class got so frustrated they stopped reading. One day she came in and started calling on people and everybody said, “I’m not prepared” or they passed.

She slammed her book shut and said, “You have stopped reading because I’m black.” And she stormed out.

We all thought it was crazy. We weren’t reading because we weren’t getting the material, not because she was black.

[end quote]

Henry said...

Imagine if Clarence Thomas had taken Anita Hill on a date to an Amy Schumer performance.

Mike Sylwester said...

Continuing my comment at 9:52 AM

A couple years after David Brock published The Real Anita Hill, he outed himself as a homosexual. By then, he regretted his own role in vindicating Clarence Thomas, who turned out to be an extremely conservative member of the Supreme Court.

In the following years, he has made his living by getting financial donations from wealthy liberals for acting as an attack dog against conservative journalists. Block’s conversion was like Maxim Gorky becoming a Socialist Realism hack and denouncing fellow writers who were inadequately adulatory toward the Stalinist regime.

In 2001 — eight years after The Real Anita Hill was published — Brock renounced his own journalistic masterpiece in a new book, titled Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative. I have not read the latter book, but this particular renunciation was summarized in an article by The New York Times, titled “Book Author Says He Lied in His Attacks on Anita Hill in Bid to Aid Justice Thomas”.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/27/us/book-author-says-he-lied-his-attacks-anita-hill-bid-aid-justice-thomas.html

For anyone who has read The Real Anita Hill, Brock’s self-renunciation is absurd, ludicrous. Brock confessed:

* The book criticized some people whom Brock had not interviewed.

* Brock did interview some people who shared information provided by Clarence Thomas.

* Brock did not include some allegations that Thomas occasionally rented pornographic movies.

Those trivial self-criticisms sufficed, however, for all liberals who wanted to discourage any more people from reading and referring to The Real Anita Hill, which is by far the best book about the controversy.

Big Mike said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Matt Sablan said...

"Real sins? What the hell?"

-- It's the creative way of pretending that Republicans are only talking about Lewinsky, the consensual, "it's just sex" story, and not the decades of assault and rape charges.

Left Bank of the Charles said...

Anita Hill lost her “case” because of including the “who put pubic hair in my coke” story in her testimony. It seemed she took that remark litterally, thinking that Clarence Thomas was accusing her of putting pubic hair in his coke as some sort of sexual come on, when it seems much more reasonable he was reacting with rhetorical disgust to finding a hair in his coke. If she thought that was sexual harassment, it called into question she might be misreading other aspects of her allegations.

In a similar way, David Bernstein starts to make a good point but loses his credibility on the phrasing, “shenanigans with minors.” And Althouse has lost her way in previous posts in her uncritical acceptance of Juanita Broderick’s claim that Hillary Clinton confronted her to keep quiet about her being raped. That part of the story doesn’t really made sense the way Juanita says she interpreted it. And we don’t really know what happened with Paula Jones in that hotel room, She came forward after being embarrassed by reports that she had had sex with Bill Clinton.

Big Mike said...

If Anita Hill believed she was being sexually harassed, why did she follow Clarence Thomas as his assistant when he changed jobs? I’m sure the anti-Thomas crowd can invent some plausible crock of bullshit to explain it, but the simplest explanation is that she was not harassed in any meaningful sense of the word.

roesch/voltaire said...

Just ask Joe Beden how. political this can be as he is the one who did not call on three other witnesses who would have backed up Hill's charges.

rhhardin said...

The war between men and women requires people take sides. Otherwise it can't happen.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

My recollection is that Anita Hill was reluctant to go after Thomas.

She had a difficult time compelling copious tears 😭 during her testimony.

The passion of victimhood, if you will, was on Thomas side.

Henry said...

Just ask Joe Beden how. political this can be as he is the one who did not call on three other witnesses who would have backed up Hill's charges.

What charges?

Sebastian said...

"I have been angry about the politicization of sexual harassment for 20 years" The potential for politicization was the main point. Still is.

"Real sins? Real sins? What the hell?" Faux question, right? I mean, sin, like anything else in progland, is a strictly political construct. Sorta-kinda sins that might undermine prog power don't count. Only undeniable sin-sin. And of course any non-prog misstep.

But here's where progs appear to miscalculating: by tarring minor sexual faults as "real sin" in the current harassment witch hunt, they are piercing the real-sin bubble that had protected liberal lions. Even escalation, to all-men-do-it, or to con-men-do-it-more, can't quite contain the damage, it seems.

Drago said...

oesch/voltaire: "Just ask Joe Beden how. political this can be as he is the one who did not call on three other witnesses who would have backed up Hill's charges."

LOL

"charges"

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...


"I didn't believe Hill because none of her story made sense. There was no Thomas pattern of bad behavior toward other women in the office. In fact, the other women (except one) testified on the Judge Thomas's side."

That's what casts doubt on the accusations leveled against Moore. There doesn't appear to be pattern of behavior that stretches over decades with Moore, the way there was with Clinton and Kennedy.

OTOH, Moore's bumbling interview with Hannity, which I listened to last night, did not do him much good.

But if he gets elected despite this mess, the media have only themselves to blame. They have made themselves so distrusted and hated that nobody (except their fellow leftists) believe they are being honest and objective here. I can understand an Alabama voter completely tuning them out.

My guess: Moore will win, the GOP will refuse to seat him, and the Republican governor will appoint someone to the seat.



Mike Sylwester said...

One problem that Joe Biden and the other Democrats had in trying to use Anita Hill to sink Clarence Thomas was that Thomas is an African-American.

Biden and the Democrats could go only so far.

The following video -- just 40 seconds long -- shows Thomas making his "public lynching" remark to Biden and his fellow Democrats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egTyaIAaqz8

After that statement, Biden and his fellow Democrats had to give up.

Matt Sablan said...

As an aside, even Democrat senators were not sure the two women that may have supported Hill were trustworthy. So, I don't see why it is shocking they weren't called. Even the people who their testimony would have helped thought they were wrong or lying.

wendybar said...

Why don't liberals believe the women that claim Bill Clinton raped them?? Aren't we always being told that we have to believe the women?? Even Hillary says that. I guess only if they are liberal women.

tim in vermont said...

Are we talking about Joe wannabe LBJ Biden the dick waver?

Fernandinande said...

Some feminista said: this president and his policies are crucial to the lives and welfare of the majority of women in this country.

That's obviously not true.

Matt Sablan said...

"This president and his policies are crucial to the lives and welfare of the majority of women in this country."

-- “If she had lived, Mary Jo Kopechne would be 62 years old. Through his tireless work as a legislator, Edward Kennedy would have brought comfort to her in her old age.”

Michael K said...

The "waitress sandwich" created by Ted and Chris was not considered a problem.

Without double standards, Democrats would have none at all.

I know that is a cliche but true, nonetheless.

Martin said...

What does Mary Jo Kopechne think?

Oh, wait...

Jupiter said...

Left Bank of the Charles said...

"And Althouse has lost her way in previous posts in her uncritical acceptance of Juanita Broderick’s claim that Hillary Clinton confronted her to keep quiet about her being raped. That part of the story doesn’t really made sense the way Juanita says she interpreted it."

Care to expand on that? It made pretty good sense to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOXwW5Ll4zI

Amadeus 48 said...

Voting to seat Thomas cost Illinois Democratic Sen. Alan Dixon ("Al the Pal") his chance of re-election in the Democratic primary, leading to the election of Sen. Carol Mosely Braun (D-Ill), who has the distinction of, when criticized for taking an all-expenses-paid trip to Nigeria (then subject to US sanctions), calling for George Will to put his Klan hood on, saying, "he couldn't say n----r, so he said corrupt [ellipsis supplied]."

This is so instructive on so many levels, but take particular note of Sen. Braun's willingness to play the race card instead of responding to the criticism.

It kinda takes the edge off the accusation.

tim in vermont said...

Althouse has lost her way in previous posts in her uncritical acceptance of Juanita Broderick’s claim that Hillary Clinton confronted her to keep quiet about her being raped. That part of the story doesn’t really made sense the way Juanita says she interpreted it. And we don’t really know what happened with Paula Jones in that hotel room, She came forward after being embarrassed by reports that she had had sex with Bill Clinton.

Shall we look at the evidence that Broaddrick was raped, and the Clinton response one more time, as reported by Slate

Clinton Is Innocent: Broaddrick is either a liar or has an unreliable memory.

Clinton Is Guilty: Broaddrick's initial denials indicate only that she shunned publicity. That's why she never reported the rape; rebuffed advances from Clinton's political enemies who, in 1992, urged her to go public; and lied to Paula Jones' lawyers. She eventually told the FBI the truth in 1998 only because her son--a lawyer--advised her against lying to federal investigators. (At the time, it was reasonable to suspect she'd be hauled before a grand jury.) She granted media interviews only after her name was released by Paula Jones' lawyers, and after tabloids printed wildly untrue stories about her. Given her aversion to politics and celebrity, Broaddrick would seem to have little or nothing to gain by falsely accusing Clinton of rape. Clinton, on the other hand, has plenty to gain from falsely denying her charges.


We have examples from the Weinstein case of women who initially denied incidents to avoid being dragged into the spotlight. Reluctance to being dragged into the Paula Jones affair, and being kept out of the gunsights of Hillary's Bimbo Erruption Squad is perfectly consistent with the behavior or other women we know have been assaulted by powerful men, even not very powerful men.

Five people say Broaddrick told them about the rape immediately after it occurred. A friend and co-worker named Norma Kelsey says that, 21 years ago, she found a dazed Broaddrick with bloodied lip and torn pantyhose in their shared hotel room and Broaddrick explained that Clinton had just raped her. (Clinton is supposed to have bitten her on the lip just before raping her.) Her current husband--then her lover--says Broaddrick told him about the rape within a few days of the event. Broaddrick was, at the time, married to another man, whom she didn't tell about the assault. And three of Broaddrick's friends--one of whom is Kelsey's sister--say she told them about the rape shortly after it supposedly occurred.

I am not going to keep going, you can read it all at the Slate link above, but my favorite part was when they said that Broaddrick couldn't be believed because her current husband might be abusive and she was lying (and risking prison) to cover that up.

Quick question, how many women do you know, going through a divorce, would lie to cover up the fact that their soon to be ex-husband and physically harmed them? Does that ring true to anybody? (Clinton shills like Unknown and LBOtC aside?

tim in vermont said...

Braoddrick may have misinterpreted HRC's words, Charles, but that is completely irrelevant to whether Clinton is guilty or not, and she was likely fearful of the whole encounter.

tim in vermont said...

It's interesting how many Democrats are willing to sell out feminism for pennies on the dollar to protect Bill Clinton, regardless of the cost to women like Harvey Weinstein's victims over decades.

Gahrie said...

if Clinton had raped women

He did.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Michael K said...
The "waitress sandwich" created by Ted and Chris was not considered a problem."

And that waitress screamed when it happened, as I would have also at the prospect of being wedged between two fat old drunks.

So the Left cannot say that was consensual.

But hey she was just a waitress. No big whoop to the Party of the Little People.

tim in vermont said...

They know Clinton is guilty, but if the shills give in on this point, where does it stop? Do we look at all of the other shady deals in they light that Clintons are liars and the press has covered for them for decades? Do we start asking how the Clintons went from "broke" to stinking rich, and how did Terry McAullif get so damned rich?

No, these questions may not be asked! The trolls will hold the line of the rape charges at all costs. It's the hill their credibility must die on!

tim in vermont said...

Juanita Broaddrick must never be vindicated, even though all of the available evidence, interpreted by modern standards, shows she was raped. She must not be vindicated because then liberals and Democrats would be as wrong about this as they have been about Russian collusion.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

" Gloria Allred will hold presser today with Alabama woman who alleges Roy Moore sexually assaulted her when she was a minor."

That is a very poor decision on the part of the accuser.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Nothing screams "witchhunt" more than bringing that vulture Allred into it.

Bay Area Guy said...

The Thomas-Hill hearings was a liberal hit job. The left simply wanted to sink Thomas, nothing more. Hill tried to bring her "charges" anonymously. But the charges were amorphous and vague. There was no touching involved, no sexual harassment, no asking out on dates.

Hill was one of those crazy women who get mad, when you don't give them attention. Stay away!

Moore's case is politicized, the Left wants to sink him too. But, I'm not gonna defend 32 year old men, getting jiggy with 14 year old girls, even in the South. I am curious what the age of consent was back then in Alabama.

Jupiter said...

tim in vermont said...
"Braoddrick may have misinterpreted HRC's words, Charles, but that is completely irrelevant to whether Clinton is guilty or not, and she was likely fearful of the whole encounter."

"I just want you to know how much that Bill and I appreciate what you do for him."

How would you interpret that? I suppose it's possible that Bill told his wife the sex was consensual, and Hillary was thanking Broadrick for committing adultery with her husband.

FullMoon said...

exiledonmainstreet said...

" Gloria Allred will hold presser today with Alabama woman who alleges Roy Moore sexually assaulted her when she was a minor."

That is a very poor decision on the part of the accuser.
11/13/17, 11:19 AM


Hahaha! Comedy is complete now.
Has Allred ever represented an accuser who did not drop out of sight after the election?

Drago said...

Man, LLR Chuck is going to have to work overtime defending Allred on this one.

Sigivald said...

"Believe women, except if it might hurt a Democrat".

Yeah, we figured that one out a while ago.

Bilwick said...

I guess in the "liberal" Hive, statism will always outweigh sexism--even with Gloria Steinem.

Michael K said...

" I am curious what the age of consent was back then in Alabama."

It was 16 but I am curious what the accusers age was. Somebody posted that she would be 17 if her story of meeting Moore at her mother's custody hearing is true.

Bilwick said...

Forgot to add that the reason statism outweighs sexism is that statism has a pretty old and powerful cult behind it. As far as I know there is no Cult of the Sexist, as there is a Cult of the State.

Todd said...

Bay Area Guy said...

Moore's case is politicized, the Left wants to sink him too. But, I'm not gonna defend 32 year old men, getting jiggy with 14 year old girls, even in the South. I am curious what the age of consent was back then in Alabama.

11/13/17, 11:38 AM


Well if he is Muslim, isn't it like 9 or something?

MayBee said...

When Trump brought Clinton's accusers to a press conference during the 2016 election cycle, CNN's Brianna Keilor declared them not credible.

Drago said...

MayBee: "CNN's Brianna Keilor declared them not credible."

You should go back and watch the video of that again. Talk about a talking head who did not look comfortable.

The lefties and their LLR allies all know they are lying, but they are committed to this course of action and by gosh they are going to stick with it.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

because his wife, who'd vigorously defended him against "bimbo eruptions," was (for some insane reason) the Democratic Party's candidate for President.

I think this is the salient point. Hillary was the wife of a president, won a Senate race in a state where there was no way the Democrat candidate could lose, and was the Secretary of State for a four year period where she screwed stuff up so badly she was reduced to listing how many miles she flew as an "accomplishment." In addition, she is just a crappy politician with all the charisma of a bucket of mop water.

You know what, when Saturday Night Live says Democrat leadership is old and busted, you know it is old and busted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBUxNeXgC70

Todd said...

Ron Winkleheimer said...

In addition, she is just a crappy politician with all the charisma of a bucket of mop water.

11/13/17, 12:50 PM


To paraphrase the world's greatest orator, "She is the most qualified bucket of mop water EVER!"

Chuck said...

Fine post, Althouse. There can be no good explanation, other than the most rank politics, for Jane Mayer to have so assiduously avoided mention of Bill Clinton.

But some of your commenters -- "exiled" being a prime example -- seem to think that Trump has no business being mentioned at all. And on that front, I'd refer them to Ivana Trump's divorce deposition. She later recanted it as the case was settled and she got her payment. I will always believe the original testimony, just as many people believe Kathleen Willey, Juanita Broaddrick, and Paula Jones.

tcrosse said...

Hillary..." was (for some insane reason) the Democratic Party's candidate for President

She bought it fair and square.


Gahrie said...

I will always believe the original testimony

You'd believe Jack D. Ripper if he blamed Trump for introducing a foreign substance into his precious bodily fluids without his knowledge.

wwww said...

seem to think that Trump has no business being mentioned at all. And on that front, I'd refer them to Ivana Trump's divorce deposition. She later recanted it as the case was settled and she got her payment. I will always believe the original testimony,


& that woman on the plane & the woman interviewing Trump at Mal Lago. At what point is it clear to everyone it's a pot meet kettle and kettle pot situation? Don't excuse it for 1 political man but not another. You either condemn it, or you don't.

Of note - McConnell today said he believed the women in Moore case. & he didn't excuse Packwood.

Rick said...

cubanbob said...
Thomas was accused of boorish behavior and the person who made the accusation never claimed he physically raped or molested her.


The key in distinguishing Anita Hill was her own actions. I would be put off by someone talking like this in an office setting and could understand any woman feeling the same way. It's also wrong for her to have to leave an otherwise pleasing job (possibly damaging her career) because of this behavior.

But she left that job to follow Thomas to another position. That proves she did consider his behavior such a big deal and proves her accusations were politically motivated.

Todd said...

The modern definition of sexual harassment is: Anything a man does that a woman does not like up to and including ignoring her is sexual harassment.

Why can't a man be more like a woman?

JaimeRoberto said...

If it weren't for the way the Democrats made an issue out of the behavior of Senator Packwood and Clarence Thomas, I doubt the Republicans could have gone after Clinton the way they did.

MayBee said...

MayBee: "CNN's Brianna Keilor declared them not credible."

You should go back and watch the video of that again. Talk about a talking head who did not look comfortable.


No kidding, Drago. It was definitely a case of a producer yelling in her ear, and the two of them willing to say anything to shut up KellyAnne Conway.

MayBee said...

I think grown men going after teens is gross, and when it's illegal, it's illegal.

But there is nothing that says you have to believe all of the accusers or none of them. All women are individuals, and their veracity and motivations are their own.

tim in vermont said...

many people believe Kathleen Willey, Juanita Broaddrick, and Paula Jones. - Chuck

But not you, right LLR?

Sammy Finkelman said...

It was pretty clearly proven in 1991 that Anita Hill was lying because

1) She claimed that, while she was working for Clarence Thomas, she was trying to avoid Clarence Thomas, and her co-workers said that was not so, and, if anything, she wanted to see him more.

2) Her explanation for why she followed Clarence Thomas from one job to the other was that at that time they were talking of abolishing the Department of Education., But that would not have cost her her job because she had civil service protection and abolishing the Department of Education would not mean ending its activities.

When Senator Arlen Specter (R-Penn.) repeatedly asked her about how could fear that given that she had civil service protection, she had no answer.

How terrible Ronald Reagan and the Republicans were abolishing the Department of
Education had been political nonsense in the early 1980s.

She repated the great Democratic talking point about Reagan wanting to abolish the Department of Education. She supposedly was afraid that the Department of Education would be abolished. This screamed to high heaven that she was lying, and lying at the behest of some Democrats`.

A majority of the people who saw the testimony thougt that Anita Hill was lying and Clarence Thomas was telling the truth, but since it has since been repeated ad naeseum so much that she was beleiveable that polls have changed. Senator Specter also never quite explained that abolishing the Department of Education would not cost her her job bt it still was clear enough to the original viewers.

Now, had all these accusations been true, there would not have been a very good reason for Clarence Thomas to deny that. He was divorced at the time. He wasn’t being accused of something that should disqualify anyone. Just a terrible method of courting a woman. He could have admitted it and apologized. It would have been accepted by Senator Biden. He had considered it a matter of no importance before it became public.

The biggest reason for Clarence Thomas to deny that was that it simply was not true.

Sammy Finkelman said...

Clarence Thomas was of the opinion that the accusations by Anita hill were a recent invention. I don’t know if that’s true – it may be – and that would be a very interesting and important story.

It looked on the surface to me that Anita Hill quit because she wasn’t so good at her job, and maybe she wouldn’t be promoted, or the job was hard for her and other was easier, (that part is generally believed by everyone who thinks she is a liar) but (this part is what I thought) she didn’t want to say that.

So whenever she was asked why she quit, she “explained” it was because she was sexually harassed. But she never went into detail. So it looked from the testimony of people who said she had told them about this years before (unless, as Clarence Thomas felt, they were lying too.)

Came Clarence Thomas’ nomination to be a Justice on the United States Supreme Court, which was difficult for Democrats to oppose because he was an African American replacing an African American.

So some Democrats, who got wind of this because she’d told this sexual harassment – no details – story to a number of people were determined to force her out in the open. So what she did, it looks like, was invent details that wouldn’t be too big a lie – or maybe it is that they wouldn’t make her look too weak for not making a big fuss at the time.

She was promised anonymity at first but the Senate Judiciary Committee did not kill the nomination in committee.

Among the people who knew it before it became public were Bill and Hillary Clinton, because they both Yale Law School graduates. Someone in he class of 1972 knew, I think.

At some point there was a round robin letter sent to Anita Hill and signed by Yale Law School graduates.

Bill Clinton declared his candidacy for president on the day of the Anita Hill leak.

David Brock was first going to write a book about the Anita Hill leak, but then he changed it to a book about Anita Hill called “The real Anita Hill” and he’s since become a big supporter of the Clintons, so I think that’s good reason to think Bill and Hillary Clinton were involved with the leak. He didn’t switch sides. He was already covering up for the Clintons from the start.

Ty said...

The most impressive thing about the whole Bill Clinton mess was the enforcement of the message I *still* see to this day:

"So a guy lied about a blow job. BFD. Don't you have a dance to stop, Preachy McChurch?"

MayBee said...

This is good:
Is No One Seriously Concerned About Media’s New Standards on Reporting Abuse Allegations?
by John Ziegler | 9:25 am, November 13th, 2017


I remember when people were mocked for not believing the Duke LaCrosse team allegations and the Rolling Stone UVA piece. I also remember when people were mocked for believing the Anthony Weiner allegations. I remember when people absolutely did not believe Bill Clinton was doing anything with Monica Lewinsky. It was brave to step outside the hive at that time.
So there is a a momentum these things get and the force of the momentum isn't enough to make it true.

Bilwick said...

I remember during the Thomas-Hill imbroglio, a woman I liked and was attracted to said she absolutely believed Hill's version of the story. Her reason? Boiled down it amounted to "Because she's the woman." End of attraction.

Scott Anderson said...

Serious people are not taking any of this seriously, no matter how hard the ruling class doth try.
Moore will win by 12. He will be seated. His seating will trigger more retirements.
They know it and that's why they're throwing everything at him.
Election's 29 days away. Tick, tick, tick...

Cheez Whiz said...

At least The Atlantic is coming around, 20 years too late.

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/11/reckoning-with-bill-clintons-sex-crimes/545729/

Well worth a read, because it calls out all the "feminists" who leaped to Clinton's defense at the time. That's the thing that got my goat, even more than Clinton's obvious transgressions... all the "feminist" organizations who stodd up for him, and attacked the victims.

tim in vermont said...

ha ha ha, thanks Cheez Whiz. The Atlantic has knuckled under!

The Democratic Party needs to make its own reckoning of the way it protected Bill Clinton. The party needs to come to terms with the fact that it was so enraptured by their brilliant, Big Dog president and his stunning string of progressive accomplishments that it abandoned some of its central principles. The party was on the wrong side of history and there are consequences for that. Yet expedience is not the only reason to make this public accounting. If it is possible for politics and moral behavior to coexist, then this grave wrong needs to be acknowledged. If Weinstein and Mark Halperin and Louis C.K. and all the rest can be held accountable, so can our former president and so can his party, which so many Americans so desperately need to rise again.

Chris N said...

Chuck, it’s usually overwrought pussies who have to appeal to the moderator to clear up the stuff they help stir.

I actually don’t mind much of what you say, nor the potential truth of any of it.

What bothers me is how (relentlessly) and when (apparently as often you can) you choose to make everything about Trump and your thoughts about Trump.

Frankly, if you can’t take the heat you know will come, maybe try another strategy, or another topic for a change.

tim in vermont said...

I think that Althouse played a small part in this. Actually, the part about Gloria Steinem could have come right off of Althouse's keyboard. Along with the parts about holding Clinton to account for his highly probably crimes.

tim in vermont said...

Chuck, the life-long Republican doesn't believe Juanita, but the partisan Democratic magazine, The Atlantic, does.

What does that tell you about Chuck's real purpose here?

tim in vermont said...

Preventing things like that Atlantic article is why the lefty trolls here have worked so hard to stifle Althouse on this issue. Slate had all of the evidence in one place, but still refused to make the obvious judgement. I wonder when they are going to come clean?

RichardJohnson said...

“The answer to my question — does the New Yorker article mention Bill Clinton? — is no.”

Ronan Farrow's story about Harvey Weinstein in The New Yorker featured the same selective reporting.xxxFrom Aggressive Overtures to Sexual Assault: Harvey Weinstein’s Accusers Tell Their Stories,

It’s likely that the women who spoke to me have recently felt increasingly emboldened to talkabout their experiences because of the way the world has changed regarding issues of sex and power. Their disclosures follow in the wake of stories alleging sexual misconduct by public figures, including Donald Trump, Bill O’Reilly, Roger Ailes, and Bill Cosby.

Bill O'Reilly and Roger Ailes were associated with Fox News. There is no mention of Democrat politicians- such as Bill Clinton or Anthony Weiner- behaving badly. Nor is there any mention of Bill Clinton's ties with Jeffrey Epstein, a registered sex offender and Democrat fundraiser.
The New Yorker's selective reporting is par for the course.

Forbes said...

Regarding Anita Hill or Gloria Steinem, it's political precisely because the accusations aren't contemporaneous. They're presented years later when the accusations can do the most damage to one's life and reputation.

As Reagan Labor Secretary said after his acquittal:"Where do I go to get my reputation back?"

Manty Five said...

Having said that, if Clinton had raped women, beaten up Hillary - real private sins would not be forgiven, no matter what the value of the public behaviour." Real sins? Real sins? What the hell?

So even feminists have a version of "rape-rape" when they have political need for such.

tim in vermont said...

it's political precisely because the accusations aren't contemporaneous. They're presented years later when the accusations can do the most damage to one's life and reputation.

What are you talking about in terms of Steinem?

tim in vermont said...

Bill Cosby, being a Booker T. Washington type conservative, finds his way into the canon of sex predators.

jimb82 said...

Gloria Steinem gave Bill Clinton a pass because, abortion.

tim in vermont said...

As gross and cynical and hypocrtical as the right's "what about Bill Clinton" stuff is, it's also true that Democrats and the center left are overdue for a real reckoning with the allegations against him. - Chris Hayes MSNBC

Shorter Chris: The fucking scum sucking right was right.

Scott said...

Several have mentioned the Atlantic article, calling for the Dems to (finally) call Bill Clinton to account for what he was (is?). Having listened to their pathetic lies and rationalizations for over 20 years (closer to 25 now?), I for one would prefer that they simply remain silent. Decades of lies from our elders and betters and only now that the Clintons are spent force in the party and no longer useful (or powerful) NOW they decide to come clean and recognize their role as enablers?

Redemption doesn't come that cheap.

Bandit said...

"Takes a lot of studious ignorance of the evidence to come to any other conclusion than that Clinton, with the evidence against him, would have been convicted in a court of law"

No it takes a presumption of innocence - I would love to see both the clintons in jail but until they are convicted they're still entitled to the protections under law

Jim O'Sullivan said...

ctrl-F is great for this kind of counter-article.

Q22 said...

Politics does tend to color people's perceptions of guilt and innocence. As a way of de-politicizing my opinions on this subject I have adopted the theory that bad behavior is a character flaw that shows itself over and over. There is enough evidence of Bill Clinton's bad behavior to make the accuser's stories believable. Likewise, Moore has several accusers that describe similar behavior leading me to believe that the charges are most likely true. But Clarence Thomas is a different story. There are no other stories before or after Antita Hill that describe bad behavior. In fact, many of the women who have worked for him describe his behavior as the opposite of Ms. Hill's claim. I view Thomas as the more believable person in this case.

tim in vermont said...

"No it takes a presumption of innocence - I would love to see both the clintons in jail but until they are convicted they're still entitled to the protections under law"

Ummm no. I am perfectly free to come to the conclusion that he did it, and that if it ever came to trial, he would be convicted, same as anybody who looks at all of the evidence would.

gerry said...

Well there’s rape and there’s rape-rape. How do I know this? Because Whoopi Goldberg suffered no repercussions and is still on TV after saying it.

She has double immunity.