No matter his influence on American law, Clarence Thomas will always be remembered for Anita Hill. While I do not know whether her accusations are accurate (although I have always raised my eyebrow at a Yale-educated DOL lawyer’s inability to confront sexual harrassment in the workplace), I suspect that Anita Hill had been in Washington long enough to know what she was in for if she “stepped forward”. Furthermore, the notoriety her testimony provided her most likely “made her life” and opened many career opportunity doors – at least in some quarters.
I don’t know whose was right – but laying into Clarence Thomas for addressing his most notorious moment and getting his side of the story out does not appear to be denying Anita her livelihood. In fact, he spotted her 15 years to prove his comments wrong.

I did watch the excellent 60 minutes interview and went back to read the transcript after you responded (the relevant section below is found on page 7).

Asked if the Anita Hill that testified was the same Anita Hill he knew at the EEOC, Thomas says, “She was not the demure, religious, conservative person that they portrayed. That’s not the person I knew. ”

“Who’s the person you knew?” Kroft asks.

“Well, I think she could defend herself. Let’s just put it that way. And she did not take slights very kindly. And anyone who did anything, she responded very quickly,” Thomas says.

“Didn’t take ten years?” Kroft asks.

“It didn’t take ten minutes,” Thomas says.

In the book, he remembers her as an average employee whose behavior could sometimes be irritating, rude, and unprofessional, which he attributed to her youth. He was asked to write a number of recommendations for her and helped advance her career, and speculates that she was swept up in events and succumbed to a combination of ego, ambition and immaturity.

It didn’t sound to me like Thomas was taking a cheap shot in the 60 minutes interview. The book certainly sounds critical in the interviewer’s characterization, yet not really inappropriate or harsh either. You may disagree, but then neither of us actually knows the context or how accurate the characterization is without reading the book.

It’s fine that you don’t want to read the book given what you’ve learned about it. There are many books I also skip reading based on what I’ve heard about them. However, I hope that I would take the high road and read a book before I expressed a public opinion about the character of the author’s grandfather.

By the way, here are a couple of posts from NRO on the Thomas/Hill issue that I think are worth reading.

Matthew Franck on what gets left out of the story

and

Ramesh Ponnuru on the focus on Thomas’ “Bitterness”

Why get so hung-up on the book’s title?

It’s a memoir, not a biography of his grandfather. The confirmation hearings were an important event in his life, and I’m sure he was encouraged by his publisher to elaborate on his thoughts.

His position is not that the accusations were just a misunderstanding between two well-meaning colleagues. His position is that Hill lied dramatically; and thus he must think very poorly of her and her character. That’s a crucial part of the narrative.

How could he not write about it?

As to withholding comment until I read the book, (a) I cannot say that I want to read the book, given the cheap shots at Hill, and (b) I did not need to read the whole book to conclude that taking more kicks at Hill, both personally and professionally, 16 years after it was all said and done, was not the high road.

While we are on the topic of worthwile reading, however, on the top of my list of must-read books is Larry Mitchell’s new one, The Speculation Economy. http://www.thespeculationeconomy.com/

It’s nice that you are big enough to be generous when you imagine yourself in Thomas’ shoes. however, I think your criticism of Thomas at this point is unfair and your saying that his statements in the book (that you haven’t read) reflect poorly on his grandfather reflects poorly on you. I won’t go so far as to claim that this reflects poorly on your ancestors.