We were discussing the words “tone deaf”. You have substituted a different set of words. The vehicle is not a turnip truck, and I did not just fall off of it.
If you look closely at the wording of her quote (notwithstanding the impromptu nature of her message once she reached the answering machine), her request could also be that Hill apologize for coming forth, not necessarily for lying.
I remember Ms Thomas being interviewed on CBS’s Sunday Morning show, just after the Supreme Court “settled” the 2000 Presidential election. She went on & on about how things were going to change in Washington. How things would be much more polite, after all the mudslinging of the last few years. She managed to ignore the fact that most of the mudslinging was done by Republicans, trying their best to bring down a Democratic president.
The interviewer managed to avoid discussing Ms Thomas’s job at the time. She was at the Heritage Society, checking resumes of possible nominees for the incoming Bush administration. Which she had been doing for some time–since before her hubby cast his vote for President.
Crazy Republican Tea-Party Bitch. I’m not pretending to be impartial & above it all here. Nor will I quibble about “tone deafness.”
And I haven’t managed to watch the Sunday Morning show since that day. Too bad, I really liked it a lot…
I’ll grant you that “public” is overspecific – please allow me to amend my definition and swap “public” with “intended or likely audience”. (I must say that Ms. Thomas would have to be unusually naive if she didn’t anticipate the message being more widely heard.)
Heh. I got here late, and am playing catch-up with the thread, but I was going to suggest the same thing.
Way to ninja me, counselor.
Really? It’s possible I’m the legal equivalent of the guy who likes black velvet Elvis prints, but I find him readable, engaging, and as close to persuasive as one can get while still holding the positions that Justice Thomas espouses. I liked his concurrence in Frederick v. Morse, for example. That is, I thought it was well-written and interesting, and I enjoyed using it to frighten my high school students. I’d have been very unhappy if it had been the Court’s opinion (as were my students when I told them it was), but it’s not bad as legal writing.
Here, Bricker, I offer you an olive branch : Admit you’re a pedantic, sanctimonious troll.
There, now I feel better.
Alright, Bricker - I agree that you have to be willing to call Ginni Thomas tone deaf even if Anita Hill made the whole thing up, as the OP worded it. You have agreed that it’s not an olive branch. Now let’s talk about the meaning of tone deaf.
*Tone deaf *does not mean malicious. It does not mean calculated or self-serving. It means unable to see how insensitive your actions and words are - to not be able to predict social reactions at all.
She was tone deaf.
Yes it is. If she were coming at this with the best of intentions, it would still be perceived as wrong-headed by the other person - regardless of whether that person believed themselves and/or consciously was trying to malign the person. It’s just bad form.
OK, I guess we’re in agree-to-disagree mode. I mean, it’s not like “tone deaf” has some kind of laser-like precision of meaning.
Being polite and mudslinging have never been mutually exclusive anyway.
“It is not my wish to imply that my esteemed opponent has on more than one occasion dined on small children.”
I disagree.
She might imagine, especially after all this time, that someone who deliberately lied, and knew she had lied, would have those deceptions weighing on her. It’s not tone deaf to imagine that a private call might elicit a private response, even if not a formal admission of lying, some sort of private gesture that implicitly conceded she had done the Thomases wrong.
Why is that impossible?
Right, IF one assumes A. Hill is the malicious lying bitch that Bricker’s hypothetical supposes she is (only supposing now), then the message comes across as pathetic and naive, which could hardly be the intended tone.
Whatever. You are whacking on a silly little tree off to the corner and missing the forest.
It’s just a teabagger publicity stunt, and a cowardly one. You don’t call someone’s office phone at 7:30am on a Saturday hoping to speak with them. I’m sure it help raise cash from the mouth-breathers, though.
So, you’re asserting that making the call was an implicit assertion (and, given the recipient of the call, and implicit accusation) that the charges were a pack of lies?
No, nothing “tone deaf” there… :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
It’s not impossible that she might imagine that, but it would also be tone deaf.
Can you at least give us a nice broad floodlight-like hint what you think it means?
I suppose it could be considered naive to imagine someone who had persisted in lying for 20 years to suddenly change their minds in an epiphany brought on by a phone message.
By if one begins with the proposition that everyone is good, deep down, then Thomas might well have imagined that Hill’s conscience continued to bother her. I suppose that’s equally naive, and I’m finding it hard to articulate why I resist the “tone deaf” label for this.
It’s true that tone deaf means that you don’t understand how your message is being seen, and it’s true that naive people don’t usually understand their own naiveté – that being almost a sine qua non of naiveté.
I guess I’m left with the sense simply that a naive message is not fairly described as “tone deaf” for reasons that I can’t yet articulate.
If it wereonly naive, I don’t think it would be so fairly described – but it’s beyond naive to think that particular message, as worded, could EVER be received in a way that would have an effect Ms. Thomas might like.