All conservatives have that moment when the lights go on and we realize how badly we’re being had by the media. For me, that moment was Clarence Thomas’ confirmation hearing. You remember the whole business don’t’ you? Anita Hill accused him of sexual misconduct in order to block his confirmation to the Supreme Court. There was something about a pubic hair on a coke can… I don’t know… the actual testimony wasn’t all that persuasive.
To me it was pretty clear that Hill was playing fast and loose with the truth at the very least. I don’t think she was lying exactly. My freshman year of college about 85% of the girls I knew claimed they were raped at one time or another. They weren’t of course; certainly not all of them. And when you heard their actual stories you realize quickly that it simply wasn’t so. I always assumed it was the same with Hill. She had and interest and he didn’t take her up on it, so she invented all this other stuff to make him look bad.
But that wasn’t how I knew the media was a sham.
At the time, Katy Couric was still cute. She was the toothy face of that fatuous NBC morning program (I forget the name) and on the morning before Hill’s testimony she was interviewing some liberal congressman who I didn’t know. Remember, hill hadn’t testified, so no one knew for sure what precisely she was going to say. All we knew was that she had some allegations of sexual misconduct by the big scary black man. Katy led her hard hitting interview with the following question:
“Congressman, are they REALLY going to let this man get away with something like this scot free and on top of it all, still be appointed to the highest court in the land?!”
My initial reaction was “wait a minute… get away with what?” and then the light went on. I realized that Katy didn’t care a whit whether Thomas had actually done something or not. The allegation alone was all she needed to form her conclusions about the guilt or innocence of a (gasp) conservative. In fact, she wasn't even going to wait for the actual allegation to be made - just the rumors were enough as far as she was concerned. And all that talk from the media about their ‘objectivity’ was all BS. That was when I started reading between the lines on the Wall Street Journal, and I stopped reading the NYTimes at all.
Anyway, Ginny Thomas (who I like more and more these days), in the interest of magnanimity, called Anita Hill and asked her to apologize for her distortions of the truth at her husband’s confirmation hearing. And as an example of the kind of generosity of spirit that is typical of liberals, Anita Hill responded by calling the police.
It’s a tempest in a teacup really. I’m sure there is some other agenda here but I don’t know what it is. Thomas is on the court for life and needs no publicity. Maybe Ginny needs it, in which case, I’m fine with a stunt like this.
1 comments:
85% women said they were raped. I didn't go to college. I'm 45 now but over the years my experience with what began to seem implausable in frequency has been 'molested as a child.'
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