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    fondue processJoanna Rothkopf
    3/30/16 10:30am

    “Anita Hill looks good; Clarence Thomas looks bad; and the rest of us look like bumbling idiots.”

    to be fair, it’s pretty hard to make a lot of GOP congressmen not look like bumbling idiots

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      Brandonfondue process
      3/30/16 10:39am

      to be fair, it’s pretty hard to make a lot of GOP congressmen not look like bumbling idiots

      omg, I feel like understand Fox news so much better now, and can now sympathize at how hard of a job they actually have in front of them.

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      Ersofondue process
      3/30/16 10:40am

      I vividly remember those hearings. As a lifelong Democrat I can tell you: everyone on that committee looked like a bumbling idiot. There were no heroes among the Democrats when Anita Hill testified. And I’m not at all surprised that Biden’s people tried to rearrange the facts, given that he was still contemplating a run for President when this was under development. Joe Biden has done a nice job of reinventing himself as America’s favorite, slightly-crazy uncle, but his role as the chair of these hearings should be one of the great shameful memories he has of his career.

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    I'm Fart and I'm SmunnyJoanna Rothkopf
    3/30/16 10:32am

    “HBO made this movie in an election year to support Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party, which loves to claim that a mythical ‘war on women’ is underway by Republicans,” said Mark Paoletta.

    Dude this fucking happened. It isn’t propaganda. It isn’t fiction to support the mythical war on women. It happened. You made your disgusting misogynistic bed, now fucking lay in it. Take some “personal responsibility.” Or does that only apply to women, minorities, and poor people?

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      TakahashiI'm Fart and I'm Smunny
      3/30/16 10:06pm

      This response is a rerun. They said the same shit when the movie W. came out.

      Can’t they think of anything else to say?

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    Cherith CutestoryJoanna Rothkopf
    3/30/16 11:21am

    On top of being a total asshole concerning Anita Hill, Joe Biden, former senator from MBNA, also authored that Crime Bill people are rightfully pretty upset about right now. And unlike others involved still stands by it. He backed the bankruptcy bill that makes it near impossible to discharge your student loans. Each time it was entered into the Legislature (the first time it was vetoed by Bill Clinton after Hillary met with Elizabeth Warren, then a Harvard professor, meaning he was more pro-business than Bill Clinton who knew that was even possible). And was a soulless corporate shill for his entire career in the Legislature.

    His shining reputation is thoroughly and completely undeserved. And that he has to face a half a moment of public shaming for it doesn’t arouse a lot of sympathy.

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      VCherith Cutestory
      3/30/16 12:11pm

      “ . . . former senator from MBNA . . . .”

      *Laughs*

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      Maxine Floeffler, Super DelegateCherith Cutestory
      3/30/16 1:32pm

      Oh, the VISA and MasterCard folk love him too. Did you know that MasterCard is headquartered in Purchase, NY? Isn’t that perfect? (Although they’re probably chartered in Delaware, like everyone else.)

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    JenniferRabbitJoanna Rothkopf
    3/30/16 10:51am

    I was a kid during these hearings, and I remember (unfair) sentiments about Anita by the adults who were following the case.
    I don’t quite remember exact comments, or exactly who made them, but the impressions I got varied from “if she can’t take the heat...” to “she can’t take a joke” to “she should be grateful”.

    It was the first time I ever heard the term “sexual harassment”, and my impression was that she was wrong for exposing it.

    I can’t wait for this movie.
    I imagine that it will be a little like when I saw “Dallas Buyers Club”, and the audience will not be able to help but laugh at the ridiculous sentiments exposed by modern viewers.

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      Cherith CutestoryJenniferRabbit
      3/30/16 11:46am

      I was also a kid and I vividly remember first hearing about the pubic hair on the coke can thing.

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      KateFaceCherith Cutestory
      3/30/16 1:59pm

      Me too. I remember hearing the word “harassment for the first time while this was happening,” and also preferring Pepsi over Coke for awhile after this because of the pube association.

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    norbiznessJoanna Rothkopf
    3/30/16 10:34am

    I was in college when that shitshow went on. Anita Hill would have been unnecessary if the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee had had the guts to say “this is an unqualified, inexperienced, gives-no-answers-because-he’s-a-stealth-reactionary piece of crap, so no thanks” instead of trying to conduct a very untimely and inadequate sexual harassment investigation.

    As it was, Dennis DeConcini helped paved the way for 30-40 years of oral argument inactivity, shitty decisions, and wanton conflicts of interest with his cowardice.

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      Annanorbizness
      3/30/16 10:58am

      ...Unnecessary? What, do you think the only reason for this investigation was to keep an unqualified judge off the Supreme Court? You think the takeaway here is that we shouldn’t have been so preoccupied with that “untimely” investigation into sexual harassment?!

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      norbiznessAnna
      3/30/16 11:05am

      By unnecessary I’m saying (a) the Senate Judiciary Committee is the wrong place to adjudicate a sexual harassment complaint [which the incompetent/politically motivated Senators on both sides proved] and (b) the Senate Democrats had all the necessary grounds to reject his nomination but were too politically chickenshit to do so.

      Personally, I believed Anita Hill and that her allegations provided separate but superfluous grounds for rejecting his nomination.

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    mscoffeeJoanna Rothkopf
    3/30/16 10:57am

    “one of the first times workplace sexual harassment earned the national spotlight”

    All the more galling because it took place while both she and Thomas worked at the EEOC. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. You know, the agency tasked with enforcing anti-discrimination and harassment laws in the workplace.

    I’m so excited for this movie.

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      Caitie2187mscoffee
      3/30/16 11:36am

      That’s what gets me too, it happened at the EEOC!!!

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      norbiznessmscoffee
      3/30/16 12:23pm

      Of course, it was the Reagan years, when every governmental agency went directly against its stated mission. See also: James Watt/Leslie Goresuch and the Environmental Protection Agency.

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    32_FootstepsJoanna Rothkopf
    3/30/16 10:46am

    The Republicans were always going to call this propaganda running against their focus du jour, and it would have been 90% likely to be called pro-Hillary as well.

    I really want to find GOP Response Mad Libs in the store. Someone needs to be on it.

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      Caitie218732_Footsteps
      3/30/16 11:34am

      Bill Clinton wasn’t even in office when Thomas was nominated for the Supreme Court, so how is this even about Hillary?

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      aguafrutaCaitie2187
      3/31/16 6:17am

      It’s actually more relevant now. Hillary’s “shock troop” / ally David Brock, who founded and runs her superPAC and just filed the ethics complaint on her behalf against the Sanders campaign, was central to the smear campaign that took down Anita Hill.

      https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/does-...

      http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first...

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    paultoesJoanna Rothkopf
    3/30/16 11:34am
    In response, Amato said, “I don’t even understand that comment.”
    GIF
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      dancelikeithurtsJoanna Rothkopf
      3/30/16 11:24am

      I worked on those hearings. The most common reaction I heard at the time was from people attempting to be moderate was, “I’m not sure I believe either of them, there’s a lot here that we don’t know.” My reaction was always, “If you don’t believe either of them then you don’t give a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court to someone you think is lying under oath.” BTW I absolutely believed Prof. Hill.

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        EllaCindersdancelikeithurts
        3/30/16 12:15pm

        My reaction at the time was that they were both telling the truth — as they recalled it. I have no doubt the harassment took place, so Anita Hill was not lying. I am also sure that Thomas sincerely believed that his actions weren’t unwanted and weren’t harassment, so he believed he was telling the truth as well.

        Of course that just shows that Thomas, while working at the EEOC, didn’t understand the law and wasn’t qualified to work there. And he hadn’t learned, in the interim, what was wrong with his actions, and didn’t qualify for the Supreme Court.

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      MaezeppaJoanna Rothkopf
      3/30/16 10:43pm

      People of that day, my mother included, never forgave Joe Biden for his part. We love our grinning Uncle Joe but that was a shameful blight on his otherwise relatively innocuous record.

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        Cherith CutestoryMaezeppa
        3/30/16 11:51pm

        His record is pretty bad though.

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        MaezeppaCherith Cutestory
        3/31/16 11:26am

        Not the worst, not the best; and of course, Delaware, where all those corporations incorporate. I’ve considered Biden mostly a basic retail politician.

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