New media bloggers get the chance to meet Justice Clarence Thomas

Just got done reading Captain Ed’s recap of a Heritage Foundation dinner event featuring Justice Clarence Thomas.

It should go without saying that Thomas is a remarkably calm and self-assured man which he, of course, would need to be considering the position he’s in. But with the constant stream of attacks on him by the far left, which started from the moment he was nominated for the Supreme Court, you’d think he’d come across as an incredibly angry man – however, from what I’ve read about his meeting last night with new media bloggers like Captain Ed, Richard Miniter, and Paul Mirengoff at Powerline, he’s someone very at ease with who he is, and who has few regrets in life. And he has a keen sense of humor, too.

Though not an angry person by any stretch, that’s not to say that he doesn’t feel any bitterness towards how he was treated in his confirmation hearings, and beyond. Part of the reason for this meeting was to promote his memoir My Grandfather’s Son, which was released yesterday, in which he talks about, among other things, the vicious unsubstantiated attacks waged on him by Anita Hill and other liberal Democrats during his confirmation hearings. ABC News did an extensive series of interviews with Thomas and his wife Virginia in advance of the release of the book, which you can read here (h/t: Patterico).

In response to his comments about Hill in his book, Ms. Hill herself has written an opinion piece that was published in today’s NYTimes in which she accused Thomas of unsubstantiated attacks. I’m with the Captain on this one:

It’s worth noting that Hill followed Thomas to the EEOC despite having purportedly been harrassed by Thomas at Education. Why did she do that, if Thomas made her workplace miserable? She could have stayed at the DoE when Thomas left and been rid of his supposedly creepy behavior. As she takes great pains to point out, she had plenty of other career opportunities without Thomas’ assistance.

And why didn’t Hill — who takes great pains to review her CV in this essay — ever file a complaint against Thomas at the time of the harrassment? She waited almost ten years to say anything, despite being a Yale grad who could and did make her own way in the world. She worked at the EEOC, after all, and would have had knowledge of how to address the kind of debilitating harrassment that Thomas supposedly directed at her. Yet she said nothing at all about Thomas’ behavior until it became convenient for those Democrats looking to derail Thomas’ confirmation to the Supreme Court.

Yep. She had all the right connections, and had other opportunities above and beyond the EEOC, so it’s not exactly like her career would have been in peril had she lodged her “complaints” with people in positions to do something about them. That she never did say anything about them until Thomas’ confirmation hearings solidified in my mind that she wasn’t telling the truth. And in the end, thank goodness, the smear campaign didn’t work, as Thomas was confirmed October 15, 1991.

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Memeorandum has many more links to blogger commentary on the release of Thomas’ memoir.