POINT: Joe Biden Should Apologize To Clarence Thomas COUNTERPOINT: I Support Anita Hill, and Joe Biden, Too

Inez Feltscher Stepman wrote:

History becomes myth, myths become legends, and legends become unquestionable. And if a biased media is writing the story, even dubious tales can turn into unassailable “fact” with the right combination of narrative and time. This has been the case with Anita Hill.

Hill’s testimony alleging that Clarence Thomas, then a nominee for the Supreme Court, repeatedly harassed her in the workplace made for explosive politics back in 1991. It’s reemerging as an issue in 2019 thanks to the new presidential candidacy of Joe Biden. As senator, Biden chaired the Judiciary Committee, and in the eyes of the Democratic voters he hopes to court, he permitted too many tough questions attempting to ascertain the truth from Hill.

To be clear, Biden voted against Thomas’ confirmation. There’s even good reason to think he conducted the hearing in such a way as to give Hill every advantage, including leaving witnesses of highly dubious credibility, who would have likely undermined her own, off the roster. This act has been transformed over time into a claim that Biden stacked the deck against her.

Apparently, even a favorable hearing in front of the whole world is not enough for a woman alleging that a man has sexually wronged her. Asking basic questions and cross-referencing contrary evidence, as the committee did, is not acceptable in the era of “Believe All Women” hashtags.

While Biden initially insisted on The View that he had not personally “treated [Hill] badly,” he has since backpedaled given Hill’s refusal to accept his soft apology and blowback from the left. By Monday, Biden was ready to do his full mea culpa, telling a Pittsburgh town hall audience he took responsibility for her purportedly unfair treatment.

https://thefederalist.com/2019/05/01/joe-biden-apologize-clarence-thomas-not-anita-hill/
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/joe-biden-should-apologize-to-clarence-thomas-not-to-anita-hill/ar-AAALrNO

Katharine T. Bartlett wrote:

I believed Anita Hill in 1991. I still do. At the time of the Clarence Thomas hearings, I spearheaded an effort by more than 120 female law professors to petition the Senate Judiciary Committee to delay its vote on Judge Thomas’s nomination in order to fully investigate Ms. Hill’s sexual harassment claims against him. I remain profoundly disappointed with the results of the hearings.

But I also support Joe Biden, who was the chairman of those hearings, and who today has become the focus of much of the frustration of those disappointed by them. That focus is, I believe, misplaced.

Ms. Hill was treated badly by the Judiciary Committee, and Mr. Biden, as he admits, could have done more to assure a better hearing. He also could have issued an earlier and more meaningful apology than the one he recently made as he prepared to announce his presidential campaign. But it was not Mr. Biden who made the hearings as abusive to Ms. Hill as they were.

It was Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, who declared the proceedings a “war” and characterized Ms. Hill’s testimony as “flat-out perjury.” It was Alan Simpson, Republican of Wyoming, who suggested that Ms. Hill might be suffering from “a delusional disorder” and stated that unnamed others had told him to “watch out for this woman.” It was Howell Heflin, Democrat of Alabama, who suggested in his questioning that Ms. Hill might be a “scorned woman.” It was John Danforth, Republican of Missouri, who referred to Ms. Hill’s testimony as a “smear campaign.” (He later conceded that he had shown “no concern at all for fairness to Anita Hill.”) And it was Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, who declared that anyone who could produce allegations “so graphic and so crude and so outrageous” as Ms. Hill’s was “not a person” but a “psychopathic sex fiend or pervert.”

Compare these expressions of disrespect with statements that Mr. Biden made at the time. He described Ms. Hill as “an incredibly credible witness.” He criticized his “pontificating colleagues” for their repeated attacks on her integrity and the integrity of the confirmation process. He acknowledged that the proceedings over which he presided were “imperfect.” He expressed concern at the outset that Ms. Hill not be forced “against her will into the blinding light which you see here today.” It would be “immoral,” he said, “to push her in any way.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/opinion/biden-anita-hill.html
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/i-support-anita-hill-and-joe-biden-too/ar-AAALAMl