Anger Thy Name is Anita

Now that Clarence Thomas has gone public and presented a sterling defense of both his character and reputation, the New York Times and Anita Hill evidently feel entitled, or obligated, to besmeerch Thomas’s reputation yet again.

Ms Hill has an op-ed in the Times whining how Thomas has smeared her.   Hill doesn’t make much of a case and her piece does not merit a link.   I will note only one line from Hill:

But I will not stand by silently and allow him, in his anger, to reinvent me.

I listened to the first part of the Sixty Minutes interview with Thomas and all of Rush Limbaugh’s.    At no point in either interview did Thomas exhibit any anger.   

There is a lot of anger with respect to Thomas, but the anger is the exclusive property of the left who are seething mad at Thomas for thinking for himself and shunning liberal doctrine.

Other comments of note.

Ann Althouse:

True and important. If only the politics could be set aside. If only Hill had also addressed what happened to our perceptions about the seriousness of sexual harassment during the Clinton era, when the politics cut the other way.

Edward Morrissey:

Now she wants to cry that Thomas has attacked her in his memoirs, and without what she sees as substantiation. Sixteen years still hasn’t taught Hill much, apparently including the “sauce for the goose” proverb.

Kathryn Jean Lopez:

Contrary to the impression you’ll get from the world, he’s actually fairly generous toward her in the book.

What’s so infuriating is that the book is in part an attempt to fix the damage done — to his reputation, to the whole SCOTUS nomination process. But the New York Times won’t let that go down without a fight.

One gets the impression Justice Thomas expected nothing else as his book was released, but it still infuriates. 

James Taranto:

It seems clear that before writing this op-ed, Hill didn’t even bother reading the book. Having a law degree from Yale doesn’t mean you no longer have to do your homework. We have no way of independently evaluating her performance at EEOC, but to call her a mediocre op-ed writer would be generous.

It is hard, ie not impossible, to take the left’s charges of sexual harrassment seriously post-Clinton.

Nina Burleigh:

“I’d be happy to give him [Clinton] a blow job just to thank him for keeping abortion legal.”

While Hill calls Thomas angry, I see no anger in Thomas’ motivation.   I only see a man trying to repay a debt to his grandfather.

Addendum:   Added James Taranto.

There has been a lot said, recently, James Dobson, et al, and their threats to go third party, as opposed to supporting the likes of Rudy Giuliani.

Look.

Rudy is not my first choice, however, he still better than any democrat.  As for Dobson and company and they’ve been making the same noises since Nixon, and has yet have not pulled that string of that they’ve been threatening, because at the bottom line they recognize that point; the democrats are not the lesser evil.

Also Blogging: OTB

Dan Riehl notes Harry Reid has really stepped in it again. Jules Crittenden, and Surber, too:

“Our troops are fighting and dying to bring to others the freedoms that many take for granted.” — Senate Plurality Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada.

Ah Democrats. Too clever by half, again. In denouncing Rush Limbaugh, Reid had to admit that in Iraq: “Our troops are fighting and dying to bring to others the freedoms that many take for granted.”

This is the same Harry Reid who in April pronounced the war in Iraq was lost.

Reid and the Democrats have a real big problem. They sold their souls to billionaires like Wes Boyd and George Soros who finance MoveOn and other front groups for rich white socialists. The Betray Us ad backfired. A poll showed 58% of the American people were disgusted with the ad, only 23% supported it.

So they manufactured a controversy. Rush Limbaugh called out the fake soldier Jesse MacBeth — who was hailed by the left as an antiwar Iraqi vet who reported wild tales of war atrocities. Rush called the guy a phony soldier. The left seized on it.

They seized on it all right, Don.  They seized on it the way in drowning man clamps onto on anything that looks like it may float, and for the same reason.

The democrats attempted to make hay on a comment from Limbaugh… an attempt which had no basis in fact. (Yes, we’ve discussed this here) So, Harry Reid decides to give the attempt the bite of government, and instead takes a bite out of his own backside.  Slick move, Harry.  I wonder how many of the democrats signing onto this piece of Mr. Reed’s, really understand the admission they’re signing onto.

The left, apparently, is unable to gain any traction with the new smears, so there retrying all the old ones.  A case in point is Anita Hill… she of the pubic hair on the Coke can fame.

What’s interesting, is the comparison between how Clarence Thomas handles it in his book, which is actually fairly gentle with Ms. Hill, and the secondary attempt by the left to Re- quash the uppity black man who dared to step outside leftist orthodoxy by publishing yet another smear.

Hill’s charges of Thomas throwing a large pile of unsubstantiated allegations at her, should throw just about anyone who watched those proceedings years agoto at least roll their eyes in disgust. Let’s remember the situation; hill had charged that Thomas had made her work situation unbearable.  If that’s true, then why did she followed Thomas from the department of education to the EEOC?  Why would she not find someone else’s wing to shelter under?  Further, Hill sat on all this, for a period of ten years.  Not exactly a credibility builder.
It gets better:

In the portion of his book that addresses my role in the Senate hearings into his nomination, Justice Thomas offers a litany of unsubstantiated representations and outright smears that Republican senators made about me when I testified before the Judiciary Committee — that I was a “combative left-winger” who was “touchy” and prone to overreacting to “slights.” A number of independent authors have shown those attacks to be baseless. What’s more, their reports draw on the experiences of others who were familiar with Mr. Thomas’s behavior, and who came forward after the hearings. It’s no longer my word against his.

Justice Thomas’s characterization of me is also hobbled by blatant inconsistencies. He claims, for instance, that I was a mediocre employee who had a job in the federal government only because he had “given it” to me. He ignores the reality: I was fully qualified to work in the government, having graduated from Yale Law School (his alma mater, which he calls one of the finest in the country), and passed the District of Columbia Bar exam, one of the toughest in the nation.

And the only problem with all of this, of course, is that it was Hill, not Thomas, who wanted the judiciary committee with a whole laundry list of unsubstantiated charges back in 91.  The idea that they were unsubstantiated was even noted by the committee at the time.  She had no evidence, and her testimony was self contradictory.

Frankly, Hill’s nonsense has even less credibility now than it did then.  And it wasn’t much then.  What all this does show, however, is the degree to which the left will go to maintain Liberal lockstep among people of color.  The only diversity the left does not respect is, after all, diversity of thought.  It’s the one area where diversity , in fact, it cannot be tolerated.

Others blogging: Captain’s Quarters, Sister Toldjah, The Corner, Althouse, The Corner, Althouse

Steven R. Hurst, Associated Press: 

 BAGHDAD — The number of American troops and Iraqi civilians killed in the war fell in September to levels not seen in more than a year. The U.S. military said the lower count was at least partly a result of new strategies and 30,000 additional U.S. forces deployed this year.

Although it is difficult to draw conclusions from a single month’s tally, the figures could suggest U.S.-led forces are making headway against extremist factions and disrupting their ability to strike back.

What now Mrs. Clinton?   Suspend disbelief in the Associated Press?

Now can I please be Keith Olbermann‘s Worst Person in the World?

Hat tip:   David Horowitz.

John Hawkins, Right Wing News, has his 2007 editon of   Right-Of-Center Bloggers Select Their Favorite People On The Right up.   Here’s John.

Addendum (Bit)

Others taking part in the poll:

Likelihood of Success Townhall (Amanda), Bluey Blog, Conservative Grapevine, Aaron’s CC, The Absurd Report, David All Group, The Anchoress, Atlas Shrugs, Barking Moonbat Early Warning System, Bit’s Blog, BizzyBlog, Bookworm Room, Cassy Fiano, Ed Driscoll, Dr. Melissa Clouthier, Dissecting Leftism, Dr. Helen, Election Projection, Musings, Euphoric Reality, Fraters Libertas, Freeman Hunt, Ian Schwartz, Inside Larry’s Head, Liberty Pundit, Moonbattery, mountaineer musings, Newsbeat1, Newsbusters, The Nose On Your Face (Chris), The Nose On Your Face (Potfry), Pirate’s Cove, PrestoPundit, Right Wing Rocker, Right Bump, RightwingSparkle, Screw Loose Change, Matt Sanchez, Don Singleton, Sister Toldjah, Solomonia, The Strata Sphere, Don Surber, Trying To Grok, My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, dcthornton.com, Viking Pundit, Vox Popoli, ZombieTime

With mixed emotions I announce: John and I will no longer be producing editorial cartoons. John will continue posting his work at his blog, John Cox Art, and he and I will continue working together on various projects, but there will be no more regularly scheduled editorial cartoons. The Web site will remain running indefinitely, as a means to market our books and as an archive of our work.

Sigh.
As a blogger, I’m more than a  little disappointed.  There was (and now is) no more reliable source of illustration for the ideas I’ve talked about here at BitsBlog. I’ve used their drawings a few times, but their bigger influence on this blog was as inspiration…. even when I did not post their work.

I have been around for enough decades to know many things.  One thing that I have never quite understood, however, are the reasons behind people walking away from a work of passion… a labor of love… which this clearly was… despite my having to do it once, two decades gone, now.

Since there is nobody ready to leap up and take their place, particularly nobody with the degree of talent these two have,  I wonder who will eventually fill the role.

Why does Ace have to hit us with this stuff on Monday?

Oh, wait, he posted this Sunday night. Never mind.

Resolved: Should Milwaukee have a (privately funded) bronze statue of Fonzie downtown?

The discussion is getting heated and people are weighing in on this serious question in earnest. The detractors seem to slightly outnumber the proponents right now.

The bulk of the detractors seem to think a Fonzie statue is somehow beneath the image of Milwaukee they have in their minds, or just consider it a waste of money.

My concept of the ideal statue,  is a Democrat pol dipped in Bronze. That way, pigion droppings actually serve a purpose.

So, what greater purpose a statue of Fonzie would serve, I’ve no idea. My guess is people are not going to drive more than 30 miles out of their way to see it.  The locals are likely to be somewhat embarrassed by the tie-in, with which they have absolutely no connection.

Certainly, there are worse examples of taxpayer funded art around.  But if you’re going to setup a large pigeon perch why not set up something that has some deeper philosophical meaning ?

Addendum: (David L)    Alas Pigeon’s deficate on statues.   However if Milwaukee is going to erect a target for pigeon poop, let  the good citizens of Milwaukee honor some real heros, the Iron Brigade.    We owe a far greater debt of gratitutude to the Second Wisconsin, than we do to Fonzie

.

The Washington Times, on Friday:

 “George Soros is known for funding groups such as MoveOn.org that seek to manipulate public opinion. So why is the billionaire’s backing of what he believes in problematic? In a word: transparency,” Investor’s Business Daily says in an editorial.

“How many people, for instance, know that James Hansen, a man billed as a lonely ‘NASA whistleblower’ standing up to the mighty U.S. government, was really funded by Soros’ Open Society Institute, which gave him ‘legal and media advice’?

“That’s right, Hansen was packaged for the media by Soros’ flagship ‘philanthropy,’ by as much as $720,000, most likely under the OSI’s ‘politicization of science’ program,” the newspaper said.

“That may have meant that Hansen had media flacks help him get on the evening news to push his agenda and lawyers pressuring officials to let him spout his supposedly ‘censored’ spiel for weeks in the name of advancing the global warming agenda. …

Well, gee, that’s a big surprise, huh?

“That’s not the only case. Didn’t the mainstream media report that 2006’s vast immigration rallies across the country began as a spontaneous uprising of 2 million angry Mexican-flag-waving illegal immigrants demanding U.S. citizenship in Los Angeles, egged on only by a local Spanish-language radio announcer?

“Turns out that wasn’t what happened, either. Soros’ OSI had money-muscle there, too, through its $17 million Justice Fund. The fund lists 19 projects in 2006. One was vaguely described involvement in the immigration rallies. Another project funded illegal-immigrant activist groups for subsequent court cases.

Not so long ago, the left was making a good deal of noise about Richard Mellon Scaife.  I have to tell you, he is a piker as compared to George Soros.  Where are the “integrity in government” crowd on this one, I wonder?

You know where, don’t you?

After a busy weekend, I’m just now starting to get caught up on things.  One of the things I noticed was that on Friday James Joyner posted this:

All signs point to France rejoining NATO’s military structure more than forty years after declaring its independence and kicking the alliance headquarters out of Paris. Norman Polmar provides some background:

France is expected to soon rejoin NATO’s military command after a 40-year absence. The French government withdrew from the NATO military structure in 1966 (although remaining a member of NATO’s political-policy structure). France’s new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has placed strong emphasis on France’s relationship with the United States. And, he recently declared that he would soon undertake “very strong” initiatives on European defense and give France “its full place” in NATO. Subsequently, Defense Minister Herve Morin said that he was “convinced that European defense will make no progress unless France changes its political behavior within NATO.”

It’s important to recall that, despite notable differences, France has remained a NATO ally

Says James:

While the United Nations Security Council remains the preferred vehicle for collective security, for a whole host of reasons, the requirement for unanimity among its Permanent Members, including authoritarian Russia and China, almost always takes that option off the table. Despite its divisions — especially given its rapid membership expansion — NATO is a far more wieldable tool. The full participation of France would make it a more viable one.

Very true.  I regard it as a measure of how much the international position of France has changed for the better, following the most recent election.  It strikes me that if we are somehow stupid enough to put Hillary Clinton into the White House, that France will have a more realistic international policy than the United States .  Certainly, the situation which no one could have predicted four years ago. and so, to address James’ second point, it is in fact a more wieldable weapon.  But wieldable by whom, and to what end? Most certainly that is one of the things that is dependent on the outcome of the next election here in the states.

Breitbart:

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – A member of the state’s Commission of Immigration resigned Thursday, a few hours after Gov. Timothy M. Kaine was told about online videos showing the appointee condemning Israel and advocating “the jihad way.”Kaine learned of the videos from a caller to his live monthly radio program and accepted the resignation of Dr. Esam S. Omeish about three hours later.

“Dr. Omeish is a respected physician and community leader, yet I have been made aware of certain statements he has made which concern me,” Kaine said in a news release announcing the resignation.

The governor said Omeish resigned because he did not want the controversy to distract from the work of the 20-member commission appointed to study the effects of immigration and federal immigration policies on Virginia.

Yeah, sure.

There is something in this, which would seem to be of a piece with nobody  knowing about Norman Hsu’s criminal past. in this case, we have yet another Democrat, who can’t be bothered to look too closely at the histories of the people he associates with, and his dependant upon.

Or perhaps, Governor Kaine figured nobody would notice.

Several people, including Jules Crittenden, have noted the New York Times column by world famous idiot Tom Friedman :

Tom Friedman: “9/11 has made us stupid.”

Sure has made some people stupid, no question.  Friedman is writing against Giuliani as the “9/11? candidate, saying we need a 9/12 candidate.  Which, as an attempt to be clever, is pretty stupid, too. 9/12, you’ll recall, was the day after 9/11. Pretty much the day its been ever since.  I don’t know what you were thinking about that day.  I actually was thinking about international tourism, just like Friedman wants us to. But I was working out a travel itinerary for Afghanistan.* Friedman wants to get everyone thinking about travel to the United States.  A lot of people were thinking about that on 9/12, too. Jose Padilla, Richard Reid, to name a couple.

…

Friedman’s 9/12 argument, ironically, is a variant of George Bush’s biggest post-9/11 mistake.  When he told a nation looking for leadership to “Go shopping!” instead of “Enlist!”  The latter being the message our current and 1/20/09 leadership still need to focus on.  The war isn’t over by a long shot.

Friedman says :

What does that mean? This: 9/11 has made us stupid. I honor, and weep for, all those murdered on that day. But our reaction to 9/11 — mine included — has knocked America completely out of balance, and it is time to get things right again.

Two points;

1. That only occurs once you have won the war.  Peace, is not a product of capitulation and withdrawal.  It is a product of a winning the war. 
2. So, America is now stupid because of our fixation on the attack on us?  Well, before you get too far down that road, consider the idea that these people you’re calling stupid, are reading you Tom…  I’ll leave you to do the math on that one.

Bonus: “You’re all stupid” doesn’t seem a particularly persuasive argument, even absent points one and two.  But such is the level to which BDS sufferers seem to sink to as a matter of routine, lately.

Others:

Don Surber, BartBlog JammieWearingFool Stop The ACLU, Wizbang, The Strata-Sphere, Conservative Belle, The Van Der Galiën Gazette,

 Riehl World View,  , Sister Toldjah, Roger Ailes,

If this isn’t yet another example of what health care would be like is run by the government…

 WASHINGTON —(AP)  Who cares if they’re free? Residents in the nation’s capital say the condoms being handed out have a serious problem.

As many as 70,000 condoms given away in a citywide campaign to reduce HIV and AIDS were returned this week by community groups. Another 100,000 condoms were returned in early September because of complaints their paper packaging can be easily damaged and could make the condoms ineffective.

City health officials agreed that complaints about the packaging were damaging to their citywide distribution campaign, but they have insisted the condoms were safe. They said this week they will distribute brand-name substitutes.

How many examples of this kind of thing do we need before we start seriously considering the government running our Healthcare system isn’t the way to go?  I mean, how many times do we have to be slapped upside the head with a two by four before we finally get the message?

Today’s post surrounds CPL Clinton Warrick, a medic with the 2nd Platoon, 300th Military Police Company.

Cpl Warrick is a hero of the first order. You can go here to read about his story.

Project Hero, is a worthy attempt on McQ’s part to remind us that we have heroes among us. Further, that these need to be honored as such. We at BitsBlog are proud to lend our voice to such a project.