judicial hobbies

Clarence Thomas’s Ex-Girlfriend Backs Anita Hill in Memoir Detailing His ‘Hobby’

You’re Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court is back in session, and everyone’s caught up on their Law & Order reruns. It’s been nineteen years since Anita Hill testified about your expert questioning of the origin of pubic hairs on Coke cans, and life is looking pretty good. That is, until your wife, Ginni, decides to take the heat off herself for her tea-party speeches against Washington elites and put it back on unsuspecting Brandeis professor Anita Hill with a (surprise!) Saturday-morning phone call demanding an apology. Now, Lillian McEwen, a former assistant U.S. attorney and your girlfriend at the time of the confirmation, is shopping around a memoir about your penchant for discussing pornography, your vocal admiration for amply endowed female co-workers, and your “hobby” for scouting potential partners in the office — much of which corroborates testimony given during the sexual-harassment hearings. Maybe you should have put a statute of limitations on career-shattering allegations.

Clarence Thomas is probably looking for someone to blame over all of this. But should it be the ex-lover who waited nineteen years to make these disclosures, despite repeated requests to share her side of the story? Or should he blame the liberal media for calling out his wife’s tea-party railings against unidentified enemies of the Constitution, which then practically forced her to call Anita Hill, driving up interest in McEwen’s memoir?

Thomas could even take aim at Joe Biden, who headed the Senate Judiciary Committee and limited witnesses during the sexual-harassment hearings to women who had a “professional relationship” with Thomas. After all, McEwen disclosed her relationship to Biden, for whom she had previously worked. And if Biden hadn’t lifted the subpoena for Angela Wright — a federal employee who had been fired by Thomas, but was going to testify that he had asked her “What size are your breasts?” as they walked into an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission seminar — Wright’s corroborated statement might have gotten more attention.

After carefully weighing all the potential defendants, we think Clarence Thomas should blame … himself. Don’t describe animal porn to co-workers if you don’t want to do the time. That’s how the saying goes, right?

Lillian McEwen breaks her 19-year silence about Justice Clarence Thomas [WP]

Clarence Thomas’s Ex-Girlfriend Backs Anita Hill in Memoir Detailing His ‘Hobby’