SCOTUS Wife Virginia Thomas asks Anita Hill to apologize - WTF?

[Bricker]

@jsgoddess

How about none exist because this board didn’t exist?

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:

@Bricker

I don’t see that she owes anyone an apology.

There is no question that there was a vast effort to get Mr. Clinton, and the resources expended on a perjury case exceed by orders of magnitude anything that woul have been spent had the target not been the President.

Not to say it wasn’t warranted, and not to say that Mr. Clinton didn’t deserve to be held to a high standard.

But even putting aside the understandable zeal of a deceived wife defendign her husband, the plain fact is that vast forces were arrayed to get Mr. Clinton. The observation being true, she owes no apology.

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:

@Bricker

What evidence supports this view?

Frankly, it seems to me that this conclusion is arrived at by the same method as deciding Bush lied – a dislike for the person coloring the view of the actions. Bush is evil, so, naturally, he must have lied. Mrs. Clinton is evil, so, naturally, her actions are based on nothing but cold appraisal of appearances.

I’d prefer to look at the evidence. It’s absolutely unclear to me that Mr. Clinton’s adulterous actions should be imputed to the detriment of Mrs. Clinton. He was the cheater: how does that possibly make her the bad guy?

It’s true that she defended him and blamed a “vast, right-wing conspiracy” instead of accepting the truth. But this makes her no different that the spouses of cheating partners throughout history who have accepted the lies, even after experience should have taught her better. The sheer weight of numbers goes to Mrs. Clinton’s side here. It’s not reasonable, but it happens – when you love someone and want the relationship to work, you blind yourself to the obvious. That’s all the inference that the facts support.

And as an aside – there WAS a vast, right-wing conspiracy. A peccadillo like Mr. Clinton’s, if committed by Joe Average, would never have been ferretted out by a grand jury. Hundreds of Joe Averages lie in depositions all the time, and opposing parties simply do not have the financial resources to expose the lies. The only reason Mr. Clinton’s lies came to light was the intense interest shown by the special prosecutor. It’s well to note that the vast, right-wing conspiracy (VRWC) did not manufacture the wrong-doing, but it’s equally true that the only reason it came to light was the VRWC. So blaming Mrs. Clinton for mentioning the VRWC seems a bit misplaced.

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.