What McEwen is Selling
[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; send your tips here.]
One of the overlooked elements in Rathergate was the revelation of how book deals helped companies like CBS to allow a person to get paid for a story they provided, without actually having CBS News on the check. (Source: see page 71).
So we learn that Lillian McEwan is breaking her silence in a piece that is almost as fluffy as this embarrassing piece on Gloria Allred. Apparently she was once Clarence Thomas’ girlfriend and she is moved now to tell the world damning things that corroborate what Anita Hill said all those years ago. But as an attorney I can impeach her “testimony” in my sleep.
First let’s consider this quote:
She has written a memoir, which she is now shopping to publishers. News broke that the justice’s wife, Virginia Thomas, left a voice mail on Hill’s office phone at Brandeis University, seeking an apology — a request that Hill declined in a statement. After that, McEwen changed her mind and decided to talk about her relationship with Thomas.
“I have nothing to be afraid of,” she said, adding that she hopes the attention stokes interest in her manuscript.
So she has something to sell. Now let’s review what the paper said about her life.
In 2007, the Howard University Law School graduate retired and grew reflective on her life. Her career had included stints as an administrative law judge for both the Social Security Administration and the Securities and Exchange Commission. She also had turns as a law professor and a private attorney — all after her work as a federal prosecutor and Senate Judiciary Committee lawyer.
Now, it sounds like she has lived a life of consequence, but let’s face it, very few people are going to read a memoir about that. So, which story would be more likely to add the needed spice to move copies?
1) I was Clarence Thomas’ girlfriend, but I didn’t see or hear anything to verify Anita Hill’s claims.
2) I was Clarence Thomas’ girlfriend, and exclusive in my book you will hear evidence that he in fact did sexually harass Anita Hill!
I think the question answers itself.
But if monetary motive was not enough, then there is her anger at his rulings that is frankly over-the-top (and that is putting it mildly) in this interview with ABC:
“Clarence is 90 percent of black people’s nightmare on the bench,” McEwen said of the Justice’s rulings on the high court. “So I would say from the point of view alone — no, he’s not suited to be on the bench.”
She said Thomas’ opinions reflect a transformation of the man she used to know and that they have made her more comfortable with coming forward.
“Clarence has transformed himself — and continues to transform himself — into a figure that is fundamentally repugnant,” she said.
“Clarence is angry that the black community did not stand up for him… at the point when — as he would call it — he was being ‘beaten up’ at the hearings and even before then,” McEwen told Cooper. “I have a firm belief that his rulings on the Supreme Court are a way for him to punish the black leaders and the black community that did not stand up for him.
There is simply put nothing to the argument that he is somehow hostile toward the black community or black leaders. He may not be as liberal as she would like, but so what? The accusation, in my humble opinion, is so hyperbolic that it harms her credibility.
And then there are two highly dubious elements of her story. The first is this. She is breaking the story now. Not back when the hearings were happening, but now.
She can cite Clarence Thomas saying he preferred that she didn’t talk about their relationship—a sentiment any person would express whether they had anything to hide or not. Who the hell wants their personal sex life splayed all over the television for the world to see?
But let’s say for the sake of argument that she is telling us the truth. Then didn’t she owe it to us to tell us? If you believe her, it makes the testimony other people, including Hill, more credible. It bore a direct bearing on the subject of the hearing.
And bear in mind, sexual harassment of this nature is a form of discrimination. Let me tell you, I have had a professor engage in disability discrimination against me. And should anyone ever nominate him for any judgeship or any other office of sufficient importance, you can bet I will come forward. So that element is implausible.
And then there is this:
“He was always actively watching the women he worked with to see if they could be potential partners,” McEwen said matter-of-factly. “It was a hobby of his.”…
According to McEwen, Thomas would also tell her about women he encountered at work. He was partial to women with large breasts, she said. In an instance at work, Thomas was so impressed that he asked one woman her bra size, McEwen recalled him telling her.
What she claims is that their relationship was so open that he would do all this with her. But, bluntly, that is dubious at best. I don’t care how open a relationship is, you don’t go around telling your partner how much you would like to have sex with someone else.
And the fact that her story lines up with those told by others is of limited value. I mean its not like she hasn’t had time to read up on the transcripts and the evidence and craft a story.
So we have a person with financial and political reasons to lie about Thomas, who is given to wild hyperbole about the man, telling a story that is dubious at best. It’s not impossible for her to be telling the truth, but it doesn’t seem particularly likely.
Of course that doesn’t bear on the truthfulness of Hill’s testimony in the first place. In my mind, it neither helps nor harms Hill’s credibility. But I have zero confidence that McEwen is telling the truth.
Update: Minor typo fixed. Thanks EC. Update (II): Thanks to Sparrow, too.
[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]
she is moved now to tell the world damning things that collaborate what Anita Hill said all those years ago.
Do you mean to say “corroborate”?
EC (ac8463) — 10/25/2010 @ 6:06 amMaybe that’s a Freudian slip. Seems like she is indeed collaborating with Anita. Wouldn’t surprise me if she gives up a share of the book proceeds, since her book would be nothing without Hill’s initial story. Of course, it won’t be a direct payout. It’ll be an honorarium in appreciation for the boffo introduction that Hill will write for the book and the quotes on the dust jacket.
Gesundheit (aab7c6) — 10/25/2010 @ 6:15 amyes, thanks.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 10/25/2010 @ 6:15 amHer claims prove that Thomas is a serial harasser and he should be impeached immediately because he is a race traitor and a conservative and Hairy Reed and timmah think he is dumb therefore he is.
JD (0ec0bf) — 10/25/2010 @ 6:26 amHow big of a narcissist do you have to be to shop your memoirs when nobody has ever heard of you. I bet her and the President get along great. Fact is, her memoirs were as valuable as my memoirs, right up to where she starting dishing the dirt on Justice Thomas. As AW notes above, she is about as credible as those that claim BarckyCare will reduce the deficit. Less than zero.
JD (0ec0bf) — 10/25/2010 @ 6:32 amWell, sure. These are all factors to consider. Of course, it works both ways (“Did Clarence Thomas have an incentive to deny accusation of sexual harassment??”). At the end of the day, the ball only goes up or down the ballfield; it’s never going to cross the goal line with something like this.
Apparently, you haven’t experienced an extremely open relationship.
Kman (d25c82) — 10/25/2010 @ 6:53 amShe is about as credible as kmart.
JD (250613) — 10/25/2010 @ 6:58 amJD
Well, I hope you mean to besmirch kman, and not that chain of stores. because kmart, the store, is actually reasonably credible. 🙂
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 10/25/2010 @ 7:06 amIt besmirched itself, AW.
JD (250613) — 10/25/2010 @ 7:11 amSo, in summary, Clarence Thomas isn’t as liberal as black community ‘leaders’ and likes women with large breasts (no information rendered as to preference on rear size).
Sounds he is ‘Guilty” of being a conservative Black. .. the horror .. the horror
Neo (7830e6) — 10/25/2010 @ 7:46 amI bet her book sales surpass Dana Milbank’s recently released page turner “Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America” which has reportedly sold 1,600 copies since it was released on October 5.
daleyrocks (940075) — 10/25/2010 @ 8:16 amDaley – by NPR’s standards, how could anyone ever look at Milbank as a non-partisan ever again? Not that it was really ever in doubt.
JD (250613) — 10/25/2010 @ 8:28 amSo Clarence Thomas dated and socialized women he worked with. If this is the most awful thing in thw world, we are going to have msot offices staffed by no one. Nothing she says rises to the level of harrassment nor abuse. And even if you agree with the facts of her story, the idea of “friends with benefits” is nothing new to people in their 20s and 30s.Unless back then Thomas took a vow of chastity, no one will care.And if you interviewed anyone’s way back ex, sure they will have some complaints. No one likes someone who kisses and tells.
About Thomas’s supposed awfulness on the bench-she hasn’t been with or worked with him in decades. Shew has no idea. This is pure speculation. She could just easily claim he is in contact with space aliens. Suspect though afetr the left has wringed her out, there won’t be much of a market for her book.
Bugg (4e0dda) — 10/25/2010 @ 8:31 amI have positively, never ever, cross my fingers and hope to die, talked about my sex life or getting laid with a female colleague because I am a conservative and am uptight and have bizarre and puritanical notions about such matters. I keep a bundling board handy at all times in case temptation strikes.
What planet do these people live on?
daleyrocks (940075) — 10/25/2010 @ 8:53 amIsn’t it amazing, since they routinely like to make conservatives out to be puritanical prudes?
JD (250613) — 10/25/2010 @ 8:56 amI was a late bloomer. i graduated from law school at the age of forty-one. However, I graduated the same year as Anita Hill. I was on vacation during the Thomas Senate Hearings and watched the actual hearings not the 30 second news bites on the evening news. The picture that I formed as a result of watching the whole hearing was that Anita Hill and her witnesses were not telling the truth. The picture that I formed was not of a sexually harrassed victim but of a proto-type “serial stalker. ” Read the entire transcript of the hearings not the “edited” news reports. Sexual harrassment victims do not follow the harrasser from job to job. Anita Hill followed Clarence Thomas even though his replacement wanted her to stay. Some victim – some liar!
Longwalker (996c34) — 10/25/2010 @ 9:23 am“The accusation, in my humble opinion, is so hyperbolic that it harm her credibility.”
Another VERY minor typo (I can’t help it, I’m OCD).
Sparrow (611000) — 10/25/2010 @ 9:38 amSparrow
Unlike Rachel Maddow, i will thank the people who correct me. 🙂
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 10/25/2010 @ 9:54 amLongwalker, Anita discovered that harassment right after he married a white woman.
Apparently, you haven’t experienced an extremely open relationship.
Comment by Kman
You mean like Elliot Spitzer ?
Mike K (568408) — 10/25/2010 @ 9:58 amYou know this crap, is why people are sick of politics, it’s a drive by smear, the kind we’ve seen a hundred times before, it’s how Obama got into the Senate, part of the way his path to the White House was cleared, It doesn’t conform to any
ian cormac (6709ab) — 10/25/2010 @ 10:17 amreal previous behavior by Thomas, but they put it out there, anyways
Being innocent of an accusation is sufficient incentive for anyone to deny it.
Maybe you meante to ask whether Thomas had incentive to lie?
Some chump (4c6c0c) — 10/25/2010 @ 10:23 amDoes your day job by any chance require using thorough, genuine logic?
I’m not finding much in this post, though there is plenty pretending to be.
You say it is “implausible” that McEwen would not come forward to testify about sexual harassment because YOU would willingly testify against someone who discriminated against your disability. Say huh?
Are you the measure of us all?
Let’s look at some possibilities that lend themselves to the plausibility:
she was available as a witness but the Senate Judiciary Committee did not call her as one;
she was fairly early on in her career and jumping into that cauldron (some of us were around then, uh, even in the hearing room where it was electric) could have been like touching the career-third-rail….she’s retired now, and people not only change, they sometimes get to the point where they no longer give a shit about some things that once might have constrained them. Yes, she’s selling a book, and that is one of the great catalysts for telling all or more; it does not stand alone as proof of prevarication.
You presume to know how other men, and women for that matter, talk to their romantic-others about sex and other people, and you phrase it in such as to say he was telling her he wanted to have sex with these women. McEwen and others simply say he would often mention other women’s breasts and sometimes said that he asked them their bra size; t’would be a vast, vast conspiracy done on the fly and then in perpetuity for your wish to come true in this.
And, uh, don’t forget that some intrepid reporters went to the video store near the EEOC office in D.C. and learned that Thomas frequented the XXX section – this came not just from the store employees, but also from other customers. There was lots of evidence at the time that Clarence was a horndog. Duh.
Using your logic, I could say that it implausible to argue that Thomas did not say and do all these things because the fact that he never, ever (almost) speaks from the bench and that is evidence that he’s afraid he’ll ask for someone’s bra size, or whatever.
I eagerly await your post explaining the absolute brilliance and cunning behind Ginni Thomas’salvo at Hill.
Larry Reilly (ae99e7) — 10/25/2010 @ 11:02 amThe most hilarious bit from the OP is this passage:
“Now let’s review what the paper said about her life.
In 2007, the Howard University Law School graduate retired and grew reflective on her life. Her career had included stints as an administrative law judge for both the Social Security Administration and the Securities and Exchange Commission. She also had turns as a law professor and a private attorney — all after her work as a federal prosecutor and Senate Judiciary Committee lawyer.”
And this coming from a lawyer who only achieved the ability to get a blog on the Internets. LOL!
The fact is that Thomas lied his ass off during the hearings. His tenure on the bench will be notable only for his corruption (see Koch Bros)and his almost complete lack of intellect as displayed in court decisions.
Lastly, it is nice to see that you worshipers of the fat, draft-dodging, heroin addled, thrice married, “Viagra vacation” taking Rush Limbaugh are still perfectly OK with smear, innuendo and lies in regard to Anita Hill and Thomas’s former girlfriend.
Cheers! 🙂
Vinnie From Indy (4e0dda) — 10/25/2010 @ 11:33 amOld SNL skit on hearings I believe:
Mr. Thomas, please use the word harassment in a sentence.
Mr. Thomas: Her ass meant nothing to me, I was looking at her tits.
daleyrocks (940075) — 10/25/2010 @ 12:25 pmI may have gotten a couple of words wrong.
daleyrocks (940075) — 10/25/2010 @ 12:27 pmAs AW notes above, she is about as credible as those that claim BarckyCare will reduce the deficit. Less than zero.
Even Joe Manchin admits that he was lied to about BarckyCare, and that it won’t do what is alleged it will.
AD-RtR/OS! (61e7e4) — 10/25/2010 @ 1:12 pmAD
i am waiting for manchin to shoot the law.
anyway, claiming he was lied to is the first refuge of a scoundrel. ditto with all the dems who said that saddam had wmds, and then claimed bush lied to them. its horsesh–, frankly.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 10/25/2010 @ 1:15 pmAW…He was just repeating what Queen Nan had told him, and everyone knows Queen Nan would never mislead anyone (except when she said that “we have to pass the bill to find out what is in the bill” – and at other waking moments).
AD-RtR/OS! (61e7e4) — 10/25/2010 @ 1:30 pmAnita hill was promised by the Democratic activists that interviewed her that no one would ever know about her charges and that Clarence Thomas would withdraw his name rather than have his reputation smeared. When Thomas refused to withdraw, Anita Hill refused to go any futher. a reporter from NPR “outed” her and then the situation changed. From taking part in a “high tech lynching,” Anita Hill was in trouble. Making a false charge in an official proceeding meant the loss of her teaching position, the loss of her law license and possible jail time and/or heavy fines. after being foundguilty in a court proceeding, she would be lucky to get a job frying burgers.
Longwalker (996c34) — 10/25/2010 @ 1:52 pmI don’t know who that “outer” at NPR was, but her name rhymes with Nina!
AD-RtR/OS! (61e7e4) — 10/25/2010 @ 2:34 pmMy question would for McEwen would be, if Clarence Thomas was all these things she accuses him of( sexual harasser, voyeur, asking women their bra sizes), why on earth would she have dated him for 5 years?
Clearly it wasn’t a problem then, so why is 20 years after the purported fact?
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