Confirmation: 25 years later

hill

Washingtonpost.com:

As assistant counsel to President George H.W. Bush, Mark Paoletta played a role in the 1991 Senate confirmation hearings for the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.

But he’s taking on a new role when it comes to the upcoming HBO movie about the hearings starring Kerry Washington as Anita Hill, the woman who accused Thomas of sexual harassment: Paoletta is now leading an effort to fact-check the flick. Today he launched confirmationbiased.com, a website he thinks will combat what he calls the pro-Hill “false narratives” in the movie, with documents, video footage and other content about the real-life hearings. (Washington and HBO brass say it’s not biased against Thomas.)

While some other Republicans involved in the hearings have preemptively bashed it, Paoletta says his complaint isn’t just a drive-by one — he plans to “devote himself” to correcting the record.

25 years later, the Thomas-Hill affair is still a “he said-she said.”  Will we ever know the real truth? Probably not.

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What Provoked Ginni?

About 10 days ago, Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas called Anita Hill and left a rather bizarre message on her answering machine.  She called at 7:30 am on a Saturday morning so it sounds like she wanted to leave a message and deliberately called when she didn’t think she would get Ms. Hill live.

Those of us who remember  Anita Hill’s  role in the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings knew at the time that there was something going on that wasn’t quite what it should be.  Word around Washington travels fast and without mercy and the word on the street wasn’t good for old Clarence.  Washington, however, isn’t known for its right or wrong as much as it is for its can you prove it or not.  Thomas was confirmed by a 52 to 48 vote and the rest was history, or so we thought. 

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