McEwen said Thomas also would discuss the breast sizes of women at work, expressing special interest in women with large breasts. McEwen recalled him being so impressed with the endowments of one government employee that he asked the woman her breast size.
McEwen's statement corroborated the testimony of not only Hill but the statements made by two other women to the Senate Judiciary Committee, though those women were not called to testify.
Regarding Thomas's obsession with women's breasts, Angela Wright, who was one of Thomas's subordinates at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, told Senate investigators that Thomas pestered her for dates and once asked her, "What size are your breasts?"
As the Post article noted, Wright's story was backed up by a former EEOC speechwriter, who told investigators that Wright had become increasingly uneasy around Thomas because of his comments about her appearance.
But the Republicans challenged Wright's objectivity because Thomas had fired her and because she had an otherwise spotty employment record. Those concerns caused Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joe Biden, D-Delaware, to shy away from calling her as a witness.
Still, the Senate panel had other corroboration of the Hill-Wright complaints. Sukari Hardnett, who worked as a special assistant to Thomas in 1985 and 1986, wrote in a letter to the committee that "If you were young, black, female and reasonably attractive, you knew full well you were being inspected and auditioned as a female" by Thomas.
Though Thomas's Republican supporters called several friendly women as character references for Thomas, he apparently feared what McEwen might say if she went public in 1991. McEwen told the Post that Thomas wrote her a short note before the confirmation hearing coaching her on what she should say if asked about their relationship.
McEwen said Thomas encouraged her to take "the same attitude of his first wife" and decline to say anything, advice that McEwen followed for 19 years.
A Right-Wing Campaign
Beyond the seemingly obvious point that Thomas committed perjury to gain his seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, there is also the ugliness of how the Republicans and the Right sought to victimize the women who already had been victims of Thomas's predatory behavior. To accomplish that, an early form of the modern right-wing news media swung into action.
Though still in its pre-Fox News days, the right-wing media used its print outlets and its presence on TV and radio chat shows to demonize Hill and the others.
David Brock, then an aspiring right-wing hatchet man at The American Spectator, struck it rich by smearing Hill with the infamous description of her as "a little bit slutty and a little bit nutty." He followed that up with a full-length assault in a best-selling book entitled The Real Anita Hill, which further denounced Hill and defended Thomas.
Brock skyrocketed to fame and fortune as the exemplar of conservative investigative journalism. However, Brock's career path was complicated by the fact that he was gay and that the "family values" conservative movement viewed homosexuality as a sin and a perversion.
Though Brock continued as a well-paid right-wing spear-carrier into the Clinton administration, starting the spread of sexual innuendo against Bill and Hillary Clinton that would culminate in the impeachment crisis in 1998-99, Brock gradually rebelled against his personal hypocrisy.
In 2002, after his right-wing propaganda had inflicted grievous damage on individuals and the nation, Brock recanted. In a new book, Blinded by the Right, he admitted that he had defamed a number of his targets, including Anita Hill and the Clintons.
Brock also described the inner workings of the campaign to destroy Hill. Brock wrote that the propaganda operation was aided and abetted by President George H.W. Bush's White House and right-wing federal judges.
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