Here's a tantalizing what if. What if the nation had known about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas's alleged pornographic obsession in 1991. Lillian McEwen, Thomas's one time paramour, says that Thomas was virtually a serial peep artist at women's breasts, their bra sizes, and kept his head buried in porn magazines, and ogled porn films. Unfortunately, McEwen never got a chance to do her tell all about Thomas at the time of his contentious confirmation hearings in 1991.
The Senate Judiciary Committee for reasons known only to it didn't choose to call her. But McEwen's revelations rang true for two reasons. Anita Hill said virtually the same thing, and few doubted her veracity. And there were a slew of other women who pretty much backed up Hill's assertion about Thomas's alleged perversion.
McEwen is right on target with them. Just think what we would have been spared if the Committee had called McEwen and gave her testimony about Thomas as pervert the weight it properly deserved. He would almost certainly not have been confirmed. The nation would have been spared two decades of goofball opinion, views, and rulings from arguably one of not just the worst judges to ever plop his rear end in a seat on the bench but, one of the most embarrassing. His silly, at times bizarre, legally and constitutionally defective clockwork like opinions to sanction discrimination, uphold unrestricted government power, school prayer, and savage even the most blatant civil rights and liberties violations, hammer affirmative action, voting rights, abortion, and gender and workplace discrimination are now the stuff of laughable, and pitiable legend. Thomas has been a cancer on the bench and has mocked every cannon of constitutional and legal jurisprudence by his mere presence.
The worst part of this is that he and his wife, Ginni Thomas, have not even the most rudimentary concept of shame. This was amply born out when Ginni in an absurd voice mail asked Anita Hill to apologize for the alleged harm her truthful testimony did to Thomas--20 years after the fact no less. Ginni and by extension got what they deserved when McEwen came forth and publicly ragged on Thomas as a pervert.
This can't and won't get Thomas booted off the bench. Though it's as close to smoking gun corroboration as you can get that the judge perjured himself before the Senate Judiciary Committee when he swore that Hill was lying about his obsession. And that almost certainly would have been the final nail in Thomas's Supreme Court confirmation hope coffin. Lillian, Lillian, where were you when we needed you? Again, just think of the agony we all would have been spared from the two decades of Thomas embarrassment and disgrace if we could have heard from you then.