For instance, Brock wrote that he received support and encouragement from U.S. Appeals Court Judge Laurence Silberman and Silberman's wife, Ricky. Even after Thomas had won Senate confirmation, Silberman still was pushing attack lines against Hill, Brock wrote.
After Bush-41's White House slipped Brock a psychiatric opinion claiming that Hill suffered from "erotomania," Silberman met with Brock to suggest even more colorful criticism of Hill.
"Silberman speculated that Hill was a lesbian "acting out'," Brock wrote. "Besides, Silberman confided, Thomas would never have asked Hill for dates: She had bad breath."
In 1993, after Brock published his book-length assault on Hill, the Silbermans and other prominent conservatives joined a celebration at the Embassy Row Ritz-Carlton, Brock wrote, noting that also in attendance was Appeals Court Judge David Sentelle, whom Chief Justice William Rehnquist had put in charge of picking special prosecutors to investigate the Clinton administration.
These right-wing operatives masquerading as jurists and journalists had no regard for what was fair or true. They were committed to gaining or holding power for their ideological and personal benefit and doing so by whatever means were necessary.
Though Thomas was safely ensconced on the Supreme Court bench, the organized Right continued to target Hill. Right-wing activists pressured her employer, the University of Oklahoma's College of Law, to fire her, contributing to her decision to resign in 1996. However, the following year, she landed a teaching job at Brandeis University in Massachusetts.
The long-running assault on Hill apparently had the goal of wearing her down and eventually coercing her into recanting her testimony, a development which could then have been used to discredit anyone who had defended Hill. That strategy the notion that eventually Hill would buckle apparently led Thomas's current wife, who herself is a right-wing activist, to press Hill for an apology in a voice mail this month.
As it turned out, Virginia Thomas's request backfired, bringing out of the shadows another compelling witness to Clarence Thomas's vile personal behavior and to his perjury.
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