She called because her husband told her he was innocent of sexual harassment and she believes him.

Yeah right.

As Ruth Marcus pointed out, Mrs. Thomas “decided” to make this call JUST as the NYTimes had run a big feature on her excessive and inappropriate political actions that clearly indicate bias by her husband, Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas.  This is a red herring and a dodge so SHE doesn’t have to explain and apologize to the American people for her un-American and un-democratic actions over the last 10 years.

I want to see Clarence Thomas apologize, first to Anita Hill, then to everyone for:

1. George Bush
2. Citizens United
3. Every other sorry rightwing political “decision” the judicial branch of the Republican Party has made over the last 20 years. These people are political thugs in black (not white, this time) robes.

Why now?

As many progressive commentators have pointed out lately, conservative white folks (including but not limited to the Tea Partiers) have tried to gin-up racial fears since the election of Barack Obama, particularly during this election cycle.

To help this effort along they’ve been trying to bait black folks into reacting to some type of racial provocation. Whether it’s Rush Limbaugh claiming that black kids are going around beating up white kids with impunity; Glen Beck’s assertion that Obama is a racist; the contrived outrage and fear over the New Black Panther Party (all 10 of them); and of course the Shirley Sherrod fiasco.

The problem is that black folks, for the most part, have not taken the bait. There have been no national press conferences held by Jesse or Sharpton. And when the NAACP got snookered by a doctored tape of Ms. Sherrod it only proved how mendacious and desperate conservatives were in their “scare white people” efforts. 

When black folks didn’t buy-in, substitutes were created; Muslims and immigrants. But another funny thing happened: for the most part neither Muslims nor immigrants rose to the bait. There were no camera-ready, sustained mass protests by Latinos over the “paper’s please” law, not even at ground zero in Arizona. Nor did Muslims rise in mass over the building of a mosque in lower Manhattan, thereby giving the largely white mobs protesting the mosque site nothing to push up against——except, tellingly, the lone African American man (mistakenly thought to be a Muslim) who was accosted by the mob while walking past the mosque site on his way to work.

Truth is, Muslims and immigrants were useful as a bridge during the summer lull in the race-baiting fest but they were always too few and too localized. Plus everyone knows, if you really want to get white folk’s racial juices up, you don’t want a quasi-n*gg*r, you want the real deal. And there’s simply nothing historically that can compare to the black bogeyman (or woman).  So what are race baiters to do?

Now, seemingly out of the blue, with two weeks before the midterm elections we have Ginni Thomas, wife of ultra-conservative Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas, challenging Anita Hill to a good old fashioned black-white cat fight.

According to the Washington Post,  “ [Virginia] Thomas, [is] a longtime conservative activist who now heads Liberty Central, a nonprofit group aimed at stopping what she calls the “power grabbing” of the Obama administration.”  Apparently Ms. Thomas just discovered that she couldn’t stand it any longer, the way her husband was dissed by Anita Hill {over 20 years ago!), and was thus compelled to leave Ms. Hill (who now teaches law at Brandeis university} a voice mail demanding an apology for her participation in the score old “high-tech lynching” of Clarence Thomas.

This then was the set-up: A post-racial white woman fighting for the respect of her husband by way of challenging an evil, spurned, gold-digging black woman to a duel.

If Ms. Hill takes the bait you can rest assured the fake-story, scandal-obsessed media will dutifully play its part; with any question of Ms. Thomas’ race-baiting blunted by her marriage to a black a man; and questions about her political motives—-particularly why her 20 year interregnum conveniently ended just prior to this year’s mid-terms—- subsumed by protestations that she was simply being a dutiful wife and an east coast version of a protective “Mama Grizzly,” or some such nonsense.

This is also a two-fer: A story to tap into the (latent?) race obsession that still plagues far too many white folks in our reportedly post-racial society. Plus it’s the exact sort of specious, content-less “national” distraction the media will all too willingly let crowd-out more important matters right up to the election.

If anyone should apologize, it is Clarence Thomas and Mrs. Thomas. Clarence with his anger, his delusions and his spite is a farce as an objective judge, let alone a Supreme Court Judge who impact all Americans.
Mrs Thomas is a caricature of the prejudice and bias her husband dispenses more and more with each right-wing ruling he joins. He is an angry man on a mission to show all the liberals, intellectuals and moderates how he can hurt you.. and help the demagogue Republicans.

I truly believe that this latter day version of Magda Goebbels thinks that the day of the reactionary is nigh and that absurd and demeaning rantings are now acceptable. Perhaps dear “ginny” would find the equivalent of a yellow star or a scarlet letter appropriate wear to demonstrate Ms. Hill’s contrition!

Peetawonkus thinks he/she wrote a little piece of
satire.  Actually, he/she wrote the truth Republican-
style, in other words, no Republican would find his/her
commentary funny in the least. 

Philip Roth said of satire, “Moral outrage tranformed
into comic art.”  Thanks, Peetawonkus.

Virginia is WHITE.  And prominent.  And Catholic.  And a resident of the mid-Atlantic, which harbors an insular form of racism.

They turn a blind eye to racism because no African-Americans except the accepted few are let in to their households, their inner circles.

Multiculturalism, in their minds, is still a few selected blacks in a few selected positions.

They are transparent in a sense.  You read or hear what they are saying, but you know what they are thinking.  It’s that obvious.

News. News. News. News.  Now the news!

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.  And you are going to get coal in your stocking. Under your tree in your mansion in Sumssquatch, Maryland on that cold December day.

But what I want to know is:  How does it feel to be jerk for some group like the right-wing crap you are searheading?  A good Irish Catholic Girl like yourself. Did you ever see yourself in this position?

Or is Clarence’s hog too big not to make a fool of oneself for?

Those are are my queries.

RE: “Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas isn’t the only troublemaker in the family. His wife, Virginia, just left an unwelcome voicemail for Anita Hill . . .”

Considering the “Liberty Central” agenda I suppose Virginia felt that it was something she just had to do.  She is after all a former liaison for the Heritage Foundation and an experienced attorney who was employed by Department of Labor and the United States Chamber of Commerce to fight against such things
as the Family and Medical Leave Act and comparable worth legislation.

The point is despite her “just a loyal wife of poor-picked-on Clarence” persona Virginia is no dummy and fully understands that a large segment of the American population think her husband is a weirdo – including tea baggers. Her so-called “olive branch” offer to Anita Hill is simply a calculated advertising ploy to gain free publicity for her new tea party affiliated lobbying group Liberty Central.

Recent news from the Supreme Court.
The Gulf will be expected to apologize to BP. Native Americans will immediately cease saying hurtful things about Columbus and/or George A. Custer. All black people (with the exception of Clarence Thomas) will be expected to apologize for objecting to slavery. Rape victims will now be expected to apologize to their rapists.

Welcome to the Confederacy, courtesy the Chamber of Commerce and the Koch brothers.

****************

Nutin better to do but go back a few decades to
drag some nonBS out for what? Has virginia run
out of things to do? What has she done that
would divert attention by bringing this worthless
bit of drama back out of the cesspool where is
rightfully belongs? Or is she trying to cover over
something her ‘john thomas’ is about to be
castigated for?

No, it’s the Right-wing’s attack strategy. Get it on the news and have Fox, Hannitty, Beck, O’Reilly and Limbaugh hammer at it.  Next expect Sarah Palin to say to adoring supporters “Why doesn’t Anita Hill apologize?”

This is the tip of the spear.

Interesting ‘interpretation’ of an olive branch. 
Accusing someone of lying is extending an olive branch?

blueworld is right.  There definitely is something in
DC water.

I watched the confirmation hearings on tv “real time”. Anita Hill was credible.  She was NOT the ONLY WOMAN to come forward to testify about Clarence Thomas and sexual harrassment.

I really really wish someone would test the water in DC.  Our sitting Supreme Court, their families, most Congress critters and an overabundance of candidates seem to be certifiable.  Or on the sauce, as another poster suggested. 

And then we have the pundits, like Beck, waiting for Armageddon & selling manna-on-a-shingle…I’m just sayin’ mental illness in the public sphere is pandemic, IMO.

There several possibilities to explain this incident. 

(1) Virginia is on the sauce.

(2) She was put up to this by the right-wing.  They like to introduce a hornet’s nest from time-to-time from out-of-the-blue.

(3) Clarence is still smarting from his experience at Yale Law School.  Consider this:  A young black man for BeamDink, AL or wherever he’s from, goes to Holy Cross under scholarship and then to Yale Law School.  (How’s an angry, young, black male going over come such adversity?)

But Clarence stood tall. He neglected his blood family and embraced his new friends, the influential ‘whites’ from the mid-Atlantic school of racism.

(An edition of National Geographic in the 50s highlighted Delaware by showing a black man standing in front of a watermelon patch.  The caption said, “Delaware has a docile black population.  And who could blame them with a such robust crop of watermelon.”  I shit you not.)

Anyhoo, it’s another news cycle. Sure to be covered by the Sunday circle-jerks.

They didn’t leave Schiavo alone till she was dead.  They won’t leave Anita Hill alone either as long they can get some hype out of her.

And the Democrats are afraid of standing up and saying these people are evil.  They’re crazy.  They are un-American.

As for Clarence, Boy, Run Rabbit, Run.

The thing that sticks with me from the Thomas hearings was that both Hill and Thomas made statements under oath to the Senate and Judiciary committees.. Their testimonies were substantially contradictory on matters that should have been provable, one way or the other.. not just on their feelings or recollections..

So if Hill was making it up why wasn’t she charged with perjury and jailed?

Alternatively, if she was telling the truth, how was Thomas appointed to the Supreme court?!

It’s a funny world we live in!

Clarence Thomas’ wife is just as nutty and dumb as he is. I swear we have five stupid, crazy men sitting on the Supreme Court right now. How in the world did we come to this—nuts making law the whole country has to follow?

I wonder if Anita Hill, as a private citizen, can find the tea party activist, Virgina Thomas’s harassment actionable. Hill didn’t respond, but turned the recording made at 7:30am, over to Federal authorities.

Ginni: Professor Hill testified to the Senate about what your husband did to her…HE SEXUALLY HARASSED HER!  Get that through your biased and twisted head!

It’s not what “she did to him”!

It’s a pity that senators like my state’s idiot, Frank Lautenberg and a couple of other moronic Dems voted “Yes” in that 52/48 vote that put your dangerous, incompetent and activist husband on the Supreme Court, where he has had a decidedly UNdistinguished career.

He should have been impeached for deciding on the 2000 election while YOU were vetting appointments for George W. Bush!

Now you want an APOLOGY from the woman he harassed???  When she EVERYONE who knew him (except you) said “yup, that’s Clarance”

This reaffirms the point to me that women, wives in particular, can remember things out of the distant past with clarity and a vengence.

It is nice that the Thomas’ marriage is a marriage of equals.

anita…send that sweetie virginia a couple gifts in reciprocation…like a dvd of ‘long dong silver’ and a coke can covered with pubic hairs