Anita Hill was given the exact same treatment as Christine Blasey Ford when she testified before the Senate Judiciary committee in 1991, but for one exception: what happened to Ms. Hill happened at the hands of a Democrat: Joe Biden. Today, that same Joe Biden did two things of note: he announced he was running for President, and disclosed that just weeks ago he finally, after 28 years,
arranged a telephone call, hoping to assuage [Ms. Hill].
It did not go how he had hoped.
On Thursday, the first day of his presidential campaign, the Biden camp disclosed the call, saying the former vice president had shared with Ms. Hill “his regret for what she endured” 28 years ago, when, as the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he presided over the confirmation hearings in which she accused Clarence Thomas, President George Bush’s nominee to the Supreme Court, of sexual harassment.
But Ms. Hill says the call from Mr. Biden left her feeling deeply unsatisfied.
Emphasis mine. The New York Times continues:
In a lengthy telephone interview on Wednesday, she declined to characterize Mr. Biden’s words to her as an apology and said she was not convinced that he has taken full responsibility for his conduct at the hearings — or for the harm he caused other victims of sexual harassment and gender violence.
She said she views Mr. Biden as having “set the stage” for last year’s confirmation of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, who, like Justice Thomas, was elevated to the court despite accusations against him that he had acted inappropriately toward women. And, she added, she was troubled by the recent accounts of women who say Mr. Biden touched them in ways that made them feel uncomfortable.
Yesterday there was a diary claiming that Kurt Eichenwald had found evidence exonerating Biden. That diary sat atop the rec list for almost 24 hours. Meanwhile, this harrowing NYT phone interview with the notoriously private Ms. Hill was happening. We should all be ashamed of ourselves. If Eichenwald had found something that the so-called “reality based community” should consider worthy of undermining Ms. Hill’s credibility, you would think it would have ended up in at least one credible news outlet. Instead, the only outlet to pick up Eichenwald’s tweetstorm was Alternet, republishing the dkos diary, yet with a different author called “Daily Kos Staff” (hmmmmm).. and this NYTimes story drops today.
For the record, Eichenwald is full of shit about the other three women being either unwilling or unable to testify, as he tweeted out yesterday to a few thousand followers and the entirety of dkos. Meanwhile, here’s what the NYTimes said today (post-Kurt’s tweetstorm) about the subject:
One of those [three, Biden-blocked] potential witnesses, Sukari Hardnett, a lawyer in Silver Spring, Md., said in an interview that she decided to come forward while watching the hearing when she “saw what they were doing to Anita Hill and how they were literally trying to trash her.” Ms. Hardnett wrote a letter detailing her own experiences and submitted it to the committee through the dean of her law school, expecting to be called to testify. But she said she was not.
Another woman who sought to testify, Angela Wright, called Mr. Biden “pretty much useless” last year in an interview.
Ms. Wright, Ms. Hardnett and one other woman, Rose Jourdain, who died in 2010, were ready to back up Ms. Hill’s account before the committee, but Mr. Biden ended the hearings before they were heard from in public.
This story goes on, and it is well worth the full read. Basically three things follow: 1. Anita Hill is the victim here, not Joe Biden. 2. Kurt Eichenwald is a hack and should apologize, and 3. Joe Biden is also a hack, and should ACTUALLY apologize, to Ms. Hill, Christine Blasey Ford, and the many other victims of Judge Kavanaugh, let alone the victims of he and Clarence Thomas’ past and future supreme court decisions, decisions that will almost certainly jeopardize vital liberties such as a woman’s right to choose. If he does so tomorrow it will STILL be 28 years too late. Let’s let Ms. Hill have the final word:
Ms. Hill, a deeply private woman who does not often speak publicly about her experience, said she does not find Mr. Biden’s conduct disqualifying. “I’m really open to people changing,” she said.
But, she added, she cannot support Mr. Biden for president until he takes full responsibility for his conduct, including his failure to call as corroborating witnesses other women who were willing to testify before the Judiciary Committee. By leaving them out, she said, he created a “he said, she said” situation that did not have to exist.
“The focus on apology, to me, is one thing,” Ms. Hill said. “But he needs to give an apology to the other women and to the American public because we know now how deeply disappointed Americans around the country were about what they saw. And not just women. There are women and men now who have just really lost confidence in our government to respond to the problem of gender violence.”
www.nytimes.com/...