# SCOTUS Wife Virginia Thomas asks Anita Hill to apologize - WTF? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 20, 2010, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-wife-virginia-thomas-asks-anita-hill-to-apologize-wtf/557798 "2010-10-20T16:56:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 29
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2010, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-wife-virginia-thomas-asks-anita-hill-to-apologize-wtf/557798/561 "2010-10-25T16:20:30Z")
> [@](#): > > Just visiting this old thread to see how it is doing. Thriving still - remarkable. > > It is 11 pages of trying to get aligned on the definition of tone-deaf with a tone-deaf person. > > :rolleyes: \*\*jsgoddess \*\*- see my post #543, quoted above… ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2010, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-wife-virginia-thomas-asks-anita-hill-to-apologize-wtf/557798/562 "2010-10-25T16:22:36Z")
Getting into a parsing contest with The Counselor is like being nibbled to death by ducks. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2010, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-wife-virginia-thomas-asks-anita-hill-to-apologize-wtf/557798/563 "2010-10-25T16:24:03Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Didn’t say \*how many \*considered him calm and reasonable. May be just him, but _somebody_ still considered him calm and reasonable. Which is all he said, that he was considered calm and reasonable. > > **Bricker** can parse a water buffalo into a daffodil. Well, I agree that he’s calm. It’s easy to be calm when you don’t invest yourself in anything but quibbles. I recognize that the fate of the free world just might hang on the question of whether Virginia Thomas is tone deaf. I recognize it, but if that’s all it takes to end the free world? We deserve ending. ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2010, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-wife-virginia-thomas-asks-anita-hill-to-apologize-wtf/557798/564 "2010-10-25T16:35:34Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > And yet I search in vain for the “tone deaf” condemnations of Ms. Clinton when, as First Lady, she claimed a vast right-wing conspiracy was responsible for her husband’s accusers’ actions. None exist, because the standard you attempt to apply doesn’t exist; people (including me, although I was no fan of the Clinton administration) understood that she believed her husband and was acting based on that belief. Call me crazy\*, but I suspect that if Hilary Clinton had gone around calling Richard Mellon Scaife, Paul Weyrich, David Brock, etc and leaving messages on their answering machines demanding apologies, there’d have been a different reaction. Or, for that matter, had Virginia Thomas merely vented about a liberal conspiracy to try to derail her husband’s nomination without mentioning specific names, there’d have been a different reaction now, as well. \*Just don’t call me tone deaf. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2010, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-wife-virginia-thomas-asks-anita-hill-to-apologize-wtf/557798/565 "2010-10-25T16:43:44Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > And yet I search in vain for the “tone deaf” condemnations of Ms. Clinton when, as First Lady, she claimed a vast right-wing conspiracy was responsible for her husband’s accusers’ actions. If Ms. Thomas had claimed that there was a vast left-wing conspiracy responsible for her husband’s accuser’s actions, I would agree that that was not tone deaf. Had Rodham Clinton called up any of her husband’s accusers personally and patronizingly urged them, like children, to think about what they’d done and then apologize, I would agree that it was tone deaf. These two situations as they actually exist are, unfortunately, not comparable. > [@](#): > > If those are the options, then she was shit-stirring. There ya go. I also agree that it’s entirely possible that she’s not tone deaf, \*if \*her intentions were shit-stirring. Which it’s entirely possible they were. P.S. Please please \*please \*come play in [the other thread I keep telling you about](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=581440). \*\*Morella \*\*is also claiming that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” somehow doesn’t apply to non-citizens in the U.S. (who don’t have diplomatic immunity). I know you can tear this troll to shreds, so won’t you have some apple cider with us? ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2010, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-wife-virginia-thomas-asks-anita-hill-to-apologize-wtf/557798/566 "2010-10-25T16:47:40Z")
Gee **BRICKER** why didn’t you offer the hypothesis that she was telling the truth. Then you actually could have built a case. Her action at the trial and since ,are those of a person who was just doing her civic duty. She took a huge risk ,with no payoff. I wish more people showed that kind of guts and citizenship. The girl behind door number 2 , is appearing on CNN tonight. I think Larry King. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2010, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-wife-virginia-thomas-asks-anita-hill-to-apologize-wtf/557798/567 "2010-10-25T16:57:41Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > For one reason, because, as I said I-don’t-know-how-many posts ago, a proper apology is not something someone \*requests \*because they are butt-hurt. A proper apology is \*offered \*by someone who is contrite. > > Anybody who calls someone 20 years after the fact to ask them to consider an apology about anything is tone-deaf. Just common-sense-wise … if you haven’t gotten an apology yet, what makes you think leaving a passive-aggressive message for someone is going turn the tide? > [@Bricker](#): > > The combination is what creates my disagreement – the combination of “tone deaf” with “regardless of politics or what actually happened…” Someone calling her tone deaf, alone, would not have sparked my meter. Someone calling her “crazy,” alone, would not either. But the idea that she’s tone deaf _even if Hill fabricated her testimony_ is absurd. I know you have some sort of fetish over the phrase “regardless of politics or what actually happened”, but you’ve, for a second time, ignored my argument that regardless of politics or what actually happened (try to remain calm), it is tone deaf due to … well, shit, just re-read what I just posted above … which was the second time I posted it, and I don’t feel third would make a dent, so fuck it. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2010, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-wife-virginia-thomas-asks-anita-hill-to-apologize-wtf/557798/568 "2010-10-25T16:59:13Z")
[QUOTE=Shot From Guns] P.S. Please please \*please \*come play in [the other thread I keep telling you about](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=581440). \*\*Morella \*\*is also claiming that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” somehow doesn’t apply to non-citizens in the U.S. (who don’t have diplomatic immunity). I know you can tear this troll to shreds, so won’t you have some apple cider with us? [/QUOTE] That does seem like a perfect thread for \*\*Bricker \*\*to make like the Parse-inator…how about it, Counselor? Clearly \*\*Morella \*\*either needs to be parsed out or could really use the help… ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2010, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-wife-virginia-thomas-asks-anita-hill-to-apologize-wtf/557798/569 "2010-10-25T17:08:25Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > These two situations as they actually exist are, unfortunately, not comparable. I was responding to suggestions that they were. I can certainly understand your reluctance to sign on to that view now that it looks like it might help me, though. The following posts suggested the comparison: > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > What if, hypothetically, Hillary Clinton called up Monica Lewinsky and hinted that an apology was in order? Assume further that there was no physical evidence of Lewinsky’s various claims (if it can be waved away in the Smart case, I see no reason to do otherwise). _There’s_ your test of impartiality, assuming you dislike Thomas for being a conservative and like Clinton for not being one, however one defines “conservative”. The truth of the allegations doesn’t really matter; the hypothetical is to see if one will treat a noted political conservative differently from a noted political liberal out of personal bias. > > Surely this is a more on-point hypothetical than the Smart case, or if it isn’t, I eagerly wait for someone to explain why not. > [@jsgoddess](#): > > Maybe Kathleen Willey or… um… that other woman would be even more fitting. > [@](#): > > P.S. Please please \*please \*come play in [the other thread I keep telling you about](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=581440). \*\*Morella \*\*is also claiming that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” somehow doesn’t apply to non-citizens in the U.S. (who don’t have diplomatic immunity). I know you can tear this troll to shreds, so won’t you have some apple cider with us? I looked at that thread briefly, saw no dearth of people correctly applying the law to the facts, and concluded my involvement would be superfluous. But since you are practically peeing your panties for my participation (a pungent alliteration, if not a literal one) I will add a few words of cumulative support. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2010, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-wife-virginia-thomas-asks-anita-hill-to-apologize-wtf/557798/570 "2010-10-25T17:14:55Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > If Ms. Thomas had claimed that there was a vast left-wing conspiracy responsible for her husband’s accuser’s actions, I would agree that that was not tone deaf. Had Rodham Clinton called up any of her husband’s accusers personally and patronizingly urged them, like children, to think about what they’d done and then apologize, I would agree that it was tone deaf. > > These two situations as they actually exist are, unfortunately, not comparable. Right. Bryan Ekers and I were positing a situation in which Ms. Clinton now decided to start calling Ms. Willey and Ms. Jones demanding an apology. I would find it nutty, tone deaf, and childish. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2010, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-wife-virginia-thomas-asks-anita-hill-to-apologize-wtf/557798/571 "2010-10-25T17:15:09Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I was responding to suggestions that they were. I can certainly understand your reluctance to sign on to that view now that it looks like it might help me, though. No, you weren’t. You were responding to posts that suggested a _possible hypothetical_, wherein Rodham Clinton called someone up like Thomas did. What you _ended up_ saying, and what I was there replying to, was, **“And yet I search in vain for the ‘tone deaf’ condemnations of Ms. Clinton when, as First Lady, she claimed a vast right-wing conspiracy was responsible for her husband’s accusers’ actions.”** If you’ll scroll up, you’ll note that I said that Rodham Clinton making a call like Thomas _would be tone deaf_. But that’s not what you said, _right there_. There, you were rolling your eyes because no one accused Rodham Clinton of being tone deaf… _when she engaged in completely different behavior from Thomas_. In **reality**. \*Not \*in a hypothetical. > [@](#): > > But since you are practically peeing your panties for my participation (a pungent alliteration, if not a literal one) I will add a few words of cumulative support. Hoorah! ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2010, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-wife-virginia-thomas-asks-anita-hill-to-apologize-wtf/557798/572 "2010-10-25T17:19:24Z")
And, to throw in a few more judgments: Classless, creepy, and obsessive. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2010, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-wife-virginia-thomas-asks-anita-hill-to-apologize-wtf/557798/573 "2010-10-25T17:31:06Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > No, you weren’t. You were responding to posts that suggested a _possible hypothetical_, wherein Rodham Clinton called someone up like Thomas did. What you _ended up_ saying, and what I was there replying to, was, **“And yet I search in vain for the ‘tone deaf’ condemnations of Ms. Clinton when, as First Lady, she claimed a vast right-wing conspiracy was responsible for her husband’s accusers’ actions.”** If you’ll scroll up, you’ll note that I said that Rodham Clinton making a call like Thomas _would be tone deaf_. But that’s not what you said, _right there_. There, you were rolling your eyes because no one accused Rodham Clinton of being tone deaf… _when she engaged in completely different behavior from Thomas_. In **reality**. \*Not \*in a hypothetical. Yeah, OK. Fair point. I jumped from the subjunctive to the reality without acknowledging the differences. Right you are. My bad. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2010, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-wife-virginia-thomas-asks-anita-hill-to-apologize-wtf/557798/574 "2010-10-25T17:36:11Z")
I’d like it noted that the example I suggested involving Hillary Clinton had nothing whatsoever to do with her “vast right-wing conspiracy” remarks, and I consider it a blatant act of prevarication to suggest so. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2010, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-wife-virginia-thomas-asks-anita-hill-to-apologize-wtf/557798/575 "2010-10-25T17:44:39Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I’d like it noted that the example I suggested involving Hillary Clinton had nothing whatsoever to do with her “vast right-wing conspiracy” remarks, and I consider it a blatant act of prevarication to suggest so. Agreed. I’m sorry. I morphed Hillary Clinton in general into the specifics of the right-wing conspiracy remarks, but you didn’t suggest that; I did. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2010, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-wife-virginia-thomas-asks-anita-hill-to-apologize-wtf/557798/576 "2010-10-25T18:07:34Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Not quite. The combination is what creates my disagreement – the combination of “tone deaf” with “regardless of politics or what actually happened…” Someone calling her tone deaf, alone, would not have sparked my meter. Someone calling her “crazy,” alone, would not either. But the idea that she’s tone deaf _even if Hill fabricated her testimony_ is absurd. But it’s not absurd. One NEVER asks for an apology; it just isn’t done (by rational/decent/non-tone-deaf people). Just like one doesn’t assert that one embodies a specific virtue (asserting that one ASPIRES to a virtue is fine). Even if an apology is legitimately owed, it is ALWAYS rude, presumptuous and ceding moral high ground to demand one. And it’s tone-deaf (particularly in the case of the spouse of, for better or for worse {hint: _worse_ :p} a Supreme Court justice) to not recognize that. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2010, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-wife-virginia-thomas-asks-anita-hill-to-apologize-wtf/557798/577 "2010-10-25T18:10:41Z")
> [@Captain\_Midnight](#): > > Nobody gave me love for my statement, so I will ask again, what is he doing with a white wife? Is he “too good” for a wife of his own race? Does this ever upset anyone in the black community, especially black women? > [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > No one cares about your questions, you disgusting bigot. Why the hell are you still on this forum? I’m **kaylasdad99** , and I approve this message. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2010, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-wife-virginia-thomas-asks-anita-hill-to-apologize-wtf/557798/578 "2010-10-25T18:14:50Z")
I wonder if anyone doubts that Thomas told his wife repeatedly that he was innocent of the charges. Perhaps that is where she got the idea. Then her actions are logical. Her husband lied to her and she believed him. So of course she expected an apology. But with the new book, it will blow up in her face. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2010, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-wife-virginia-thomas-asks-anita-hill-to-apologize-wtf/557798/579 "2010-10-25T18:28:43Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > It’s true that the board didn’t exist in its present form, although I think the AOL version was going strong in 1998 when Mrs. Clinton said that a “vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president.” > > But the board appeared in its Internet version soon after – in March of 1999, I think – and Mrs. Clinton’s comments were the subject of several conversations over the years, most posters sympathetic to her. Including, as I said, me. In a 2003 thread questioning whether Mrs. Clinton should apologize for flasely claiming the accusations were untrue, I said: > > And in 2002, in response to the claim that it was valid to attack Hillary for her defense of Bill, and that she must have known he was lying, I said: > Funny how I was considered so calm and reasonable back then, when I was simply behaving in precisely the same way as I am now. Why? Because then, my defense of Mrs. Clinton resonated with the majority of the readers; today my defense of Mrs. Thomas does not. > > I apply the same methods and reach the same result. When they favor a liberal, I am fair-minded and honest. When they favor a conservative, I am a blind partisan. Leaving aside for the moment the question of whether such a conspiracy actually existed to a scale that could reasonably be considered “vast,” I don’t see where Mrs. Clinton requested an apology from the putative conspirators. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2010, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-wife-virginia-thomas-asks-anita-hill-to-apologize-wtf/557798/580 "2010-10-25T18:52:59Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Yeah, OK. Fair point. I jumped from the subjunctive to the reality without acknowledging the differences. Right you are. My bad. That’s one of the things I like most about you, **Bricker** ; your willingness, when you have been unambiguously bested on a point, to own up to it and take your lumps. P.S. In light of this specific occasion, please feel free to disregard my post 579, above. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-wife-virginia-thomas-asks-anita-hill-to-apologize-wtf/557798.md?page=28) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scotus-wife-virginia-thomas-asks-anita-hill-to-apologize-wtf/557798.md?page=30)