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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJoe Biden: the 2016 HBO movie, Confirmation, about the 1991 Hill/Thomas hearings, will hurt him
in the eyes of many -- especially those who have forgotten how he treated Anita Hill during the hearings prior to Clarence Thomas's confirmation. And those who are too young to have watched those hearings. Her story is going to sound different to 2016 ears than it did in 1991, when most of the country was barely waking up to the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace.
The cast is stellar -- including Kerry Washington as Anita Hill and Greg Kinnear as Joe Biden. So this show will get a lot of attention.
And if it sticks strictly to known facts -- if it uses the transcript of the hearing without serious alteration -- people will be reminded of how the Democrat leading the Committee, Joe Biden, repeatedly insisted on giving the benefit of the doubt to Clarence Thomas -- which could only mean that Hill was delusional or lying.
What many don't know was that a second black woman was waiting in another room to testify that she'd had a similar experience with Judge Thomas. And Joe Biden made the decision not to allow her to testify.
So, the Repubs can thank Joe Biden for his assistance in getting Clarence Thomas on the Court.
ON EDIT: according to MSNBC, there were actually two other women who could have corroborated Hill's story if they had been allowed to testify.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/16/kerry-washington-anita-hill_n_7594876.html
In 1991, as the Senate Judiciary Committee deliberated over the final vote that would ultimately place Clarence Thomas on the bench of the U.S. Supreme Court, Hill reluctantly stepped forward and accused the Supreme Court justice nominee of sexually harassing her.
Hill's claims triggered a three-day investigation, and included Hill's nationally televised testimony. Despite Hill's detailed and disturbing testimony, less than a quarter of Americans believed Hill's claims at the time, according to The Washington Post.
"A generation of people who don't even know that it happened are now going to work and experiencing this," Hill told Jon Stewart during a "Daily Show" appearance last year. "They see the signs now that say sexual harassment is prohibited, but they don't know how we got there."
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/joe-biden-no-savior-progressives
As Senate Judiciary chairman, Biden angered some women’s rights advocates with his handling of Clarence Thomas’s contentious 1990 confirmation hearings, in which Thomas was accused of sexual harassment by a female subordinate, Anita Hill. Biden didn’t allow testimony from two of Hill’s female colleagues who would have corroborated Hill’s claims, but he did allow a parade of witnesses to challenge Hill’s credibility, often in flatly sexist terms. (One suggested Hill might suffer from “erotomania.”)
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MuseRider
(35,172 posts)I had little kids in school at the time and was trying to get fit again. I got so damned in shape partly because I sat on a rowing machine for hours watching this go down.
Man oh man. I have forgotten more than I remember but it left a very bad taste in my mouth (perhaps I should rephrase that considering?). I think Joe is a heck of a guy, funny and probably a lot of fun to hang with. He is good in so many ways but he has done some real harm, this was not good and continues to dog this country.
I hope he reconsiders, I hope he knows about this before he decides and is ready for it. I don't hate him but I think he would do well to re-consider if he is actually considering.
pnwmom
(110,232 posts)and at the time there wasn't even a word for it. The Thomas hearings changed all that, even though most Americans apparently didn't believe her. But those who did finally had a vocabulary and a new understanding and could discuss a shared experience.
MuseRider
(35,172 posts)I was locked into a big freezer unit until I would give my boss a kiss. On my first day. In the first hour. I never even collected the check they owed me for my time in the freezer.
pnwmom
(110,232 posts)Could have been Clarence Thomas himself.
So sorry you had that terrifying experience!
MuseRider
(35,172 posts)all had similar experiences. Some worse and some not as bad but what they did to us as a result was exactly the same. Short of rape, which has many other repercussions to consider, I believe we all came away knowing in some way that we were less than we thought we were. Not to us but to the rest of the world. It made me cautious for a long, long time. After that I just did not give a damn and told each of them off as the issues arrived. Screw that, 40+years of feeling less than a full human was plenty thank you.
I was so jealous of the women who were never cowed by it. I was raised to be that second class citizen so I already knew where the back seat that belonged to me was. It took a while but I got out of it. 
That entire mess made me angry and it made me feel dirty like my entire roll in life was for some guy, any guy, to use me for his sexual innuendos at the least. After all, it did not matter for a SCOTUS member to behave like that why would anyone else not do the same?
CincyDem
(7,354 posts)I'll have to go back and do some homework. To the degree he was complicit in giving us Clarence, that is unforgivable - even with the benefit of 25 years. There is no penance that can offset this one.
As the OP suggested, I am one of likely many who will see Joe B in a different light with this reminder.
cwydro
(51,308 posts)Arlen Specter. Gag. 
GummyBearz
(2,931 posts)Which also puts Obama in bad light for selecting him as VP... we are supposed to be getting democrats elected here, would you rather have had a republican in charge?
pnwmom
(110,232 posts)is contemplating a run, and how some view him as an alternative to Hillary.
He's not more progressive than Hillary. He's less.
The hearings showed him at his worst, and they're about to be exposed in a very high profile HBO movie (which probably had its origins in Anita Hill's recent book, SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER).
We can't stop the movie. We might as well not have one of its villains as our standard-bearer.
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/joe-biden-no-savior-progressives
Despite the feverish stream of strategic leaks in recent days, there are still very real questions about whether Vice President Joe Biden will ultimately decide to jump into the presidential race, or whether he’s merely positioning himself as a backup in case Hillary Clinton falters.
But if Democratic voters who are feeling lukewarm about Hillary see the veep as a potential white knight—either because he’s more liberal or because he’s more electable—they could be in for a rude awakening.
Biden has been a loyal and effective vice president—and a recent personal tragedy of unimaginable proportions is generating broad sympathy for him and his family right now. But over his long career, Biden’s record is hardly that of a progressive crusader. And his candidacy would perhaps pose more political problems for the Party than it would solve.
Here are 10 reasons why Joe Biden isn’t going to be progressives’ savior—and why a Biden campaign could even make it harder for Democrats to hold the White House:
SNIP
Well both he and HRC voted for the Iraq war... that's the ultimate unforgiveable offense and why we need Bernie
DURHAM D
(33,007 posts)His public stoning of Anita Hill and open invitation for all the other old white men to join in is why I will never vote for him.
She was a young AA law professor who was called "a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty".
GummyBearz
(2,931 posts)DURHAM D
(33,007 posts)What you are referring to was not action taken by any Democrat alone. Perhaps you have forgotten who owned the White House. Let me put it another way - your comment is off point by a NY mile.
BuelahWitch
(9,083 posts)There might NOT have been an IWR to vote on in 2002 (meaning the 2000 selection may have gone 5-4 for Gore).
pnwmom
(110,232 posts)He, along with Hillary and John Kerry and a number of other Democrats, voted for the IWR.
But he was also responsible in a less direct way for the Iraq war.
Long before then, he helped Thomas get on the Supreme Court by preventing two other women from testifying in support of Anita Hill. Thomas went on to become of only 5 Justices who voted to stop the 2000 vote count and give the election to Bush. And then Bush went to war against Iraq.
So Biden, by preventing the two other women from testifying against Thomas, helped bring about his confirmation, which led to the Bush Presidency, which led to the Iraq war.
Of course we don't know how another Justice would have voted if Thomas hadn't been approved. But we do know what Biden did, and it was wrong.
I said as much in #13
ProudToBeBlueInRhody
(16,399 posts)If you did, then....you kinda did vote for him.
DURHAM D
(33,007 posts)and pretended Joe was not on the ballot. While working in the campaign office in 2008 and 2012 if anyone started talking about Joe I just walked away from the conversation and never said a thing about how I felt.
snooper2
(30,151 posts)President Obama set a high bar
pnwmom
(110,232 posts)with that dazzling smile of his. I'll grant you that.
But there was nothing genuine about his decision to prevent the other two black women from testifying. That was a calculated political decision. He wanted Thomas to be confirmed, so he made it happen.
brush
(61,033 posts)for the Supreme Court.
Without silent, no questions ever Clarence Thomas following Scalia's lead like a puppy dog we might not have gotten Bush "selected" in 2000, Citizens United or the repeal of the voting rights act, and Iraq/ISIS.
Biden's role in humiliating Anita Hill will come out for those too young to remember or those not even born.
He refused to call other women who flew to Washington and were waiting and willing to back up her testimony with their own testimony of harassment from Thomas.
Too bad, Joe seems to be a nice guy now but history sometimes comes back and bites.
And it bites hard every time Thomas sides with the right wing majority in further eroding our rights.
LittleBlue
(10,362 posts)Notice how before they looked like running, we didn't have "concern" threads about Bernie.
In the last week it looks like Joe will run and oh, look, something from 24 years ago.
How many threads questioning their liberal cred did you see before now?
pnwmom
(110,232 posts)where he has done incalculable damage.
Among other things, he was part of the small majority -- 5 to 4 -- that stopped the 2000 vote count and put Bush in office. And Bush arrived in office already determined to start the Iraq war.
Which Biden voted for, by the way. So no one who criticizes Hillary for that should be excusing Biden.
And for every other 5-4 decision with Thomas in the majority, we have to wonder how another Justice would have voted if Thomas hadn't been confirmed. We know that some of the better Justices, like Souter, were actually appointed by Republican Presidents. It's hard to imagine having a Justice confirmed who would have been worse than Thomas has been.
And we can thank Biden for that.
ON EDIT:
Why are people questioning his liberal creds now? Obviously, because there are multiple reports that he's thinking of jumping into the race. And he carries a lot of baggage and he isn't as progressive as Hillary or Bernie or Martin.
brush
(61,033 posts)Thomas is still on the Supreme Court siding with the repug majority and making decisions ranging from "selecting Bush" in 2000 which lead to the Iraq war and ISIS, he voted for Citizens United, the repeal of voting rights which is effecting elections NOW.
24 years ago my ass.
We still haven't recovered from Bush's disastrous administration.
arikara
(5,562 posts)I was young and working in a male dominated field at the time and I sure believed her. I wasn't into American politics though beyond the Kennedy's so I don't remember Joe Biden's part in it. I'll certainly watch the movie.
DURHAM D
(33,007 posts)orchestrated the public humiliation of Anita.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)
Sienna86
(2,153 posts)Nice guy, but knowing is, could never vote for him.
DURHAM D
(33,007 posts)For instance, he was anti-choice when he arrived in the Senate and remained so for a long time.
BlueMTexpat
(15,666 posts)This is one betrayal that I have NOT forgotten.
Without it, we may never have had a "selection" in 2000 (and all of the ensuing trauma, angst, and wars that resulted from it), nor a Citizens' United decision, nor any other of the terrible Supreme Court decisions where Clarence Thomas was in the 5-4 majority (ALL the bad ones).
I will only vote for Joe Biden in the very unlikely event that he becomes the Democratic nominee. But he is not now and never will be my first choice.
He's been a great Veep with Prez O, but is not worthy of a WH run, IMO. If he does throw his hat into the ring, I doubt that he will receive even as much support as he did in 2008 - and his support then was never strong.
ismnotwasm
(42,674 posts)
L. Coyote
(51,134 posts)Let me think about this for one second. Wow, that took less than a second. Republican war on women versus Joe Giden the Feminist.
http://feministing.com/2008/10/01/the_joe_biden_feminism_watch/
djean111
(14,255 posts)that we will not vote for Biden in the primaries. This continued insistence that Hillary or Joe would of course be the nominee is getting really old, and convinces no one to stop supporting Bernie.
L. Coyote
(51,134 posts)How do you suppose he got the moniker Joe Biden the Feminist?
Joe Biden was blazing the trail for women's rights with his legislative contributions. Back in 1994, then-Senator Biden drafted the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which passed with bi-partisan support. Under VAWA, the National Domestic Violence Hotline was established, law enforcement officials were provided with better training on how to help domestic violence victims, and stalking became a felony offense--and these are just a few of the victories achieved by the legislation.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/liana-gamber-thompson/womens-advocates-congress_b_2300432.html
Apparently, you have either an agenda or another candidate you already support (in which case you really should fear Joe the Feminist).
djean111
(14,255 posts)I think that "Joe the Feminist" is not really going to fly, when compared to "Joe, the guy who gave us Clarence Thomas".
The allusion to my having an agenda is a bit creepy. My "agenda" is explaining why I will not support Biden.
I'll stick with Bernie - he has been a "feminist" his whole life, it seems to me. At any rate, I doubt anyone is making a movie to the contrary. Hopefully Biden's campaign people won't be putting a political ad for him before or after the movie.
And you are criticizing as if Biden is already a done deal, already got the nomination. No, he is not. And there is absolutely nothing about Biden that makes him look better than Bernie, to a Bernie supporter.
Have we zoomed from "Maybe Biden is going to run" straight to "you better vote for Joe because only he can beat the GOP - sign your vote pledge form NOW!" in just one day or so?
pnwmom
(110,232 posts)I think it would be a mistake for anyone to choose him based on the idea that he would be as progressive as any of them.
marlakay
(13,139 posts)I think its because media had their ratings with first black pres and didn't bring it in. Fox wouldn't bring it in because they like Thomas.
I actually knew the story about sexual harrassment but did not know Joe was involved because I wasn't paying close attention to politics until the Gore/Bush thing happened.
Wonder how many like me that are even into politics now don't know that.
I am not for Biden because I like Bernie better and don't like that he thinks pot is a bad drug. I am almost 60 and all my life have known pot was harmless.
pnwmom
(110,232 posts)I don't know why it took so long for some producer to pick it up.
wheniwasincongress
(1,307 posts)
You can buy it for 1 cent on Amazon (shipping costs more.)
It made me angry with Biden. I want to hear him asked if he regrets his behavior, if he still thinks he was fair.
marlakay
(13,139 posts)Thomas is one of the worst justices we have ever had.
I always liked Joe too, admired him for taking amtrak to work. I bet he regrets getting him in, but what a work mistake. We all make them but his was big!
MuseRider
(35,172 posts)since the are so cheap and send them to his house.
Many things about him have changed making me like him at times until I remember all the things he has done that are horrible, Clarence Thomas and the treatment of Anita Hill being the worst.
Surely being VP did not make him think we would forget this? Maybe we could remind him.
wheniwasincongress
(1,307 posts)we should be sending things to the vice president 
he'll be asked if he runs, especially with this movie coming out.
madville
(7,842 posts)Right before primary season, interesting timing on both of them
DonCoquixote
(13,950 posts)will now be considered anti feminist?
wow, I smell desperation. I want Joe to stay put of this, but to hear the cannons of illogic and smear loaded is sad.
pnwmom
(110,232 posts)Last edited Tue Aug 25, 2015, 04:24 PM - Edit history (1)
But I don't think it makes up for allowing the Rethugs on the 1991 confirmation committee to publicly beat up on Anita Hill, the young woman who was "a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty."
And for preventing two other young women from testifying to corroborate Anita's story.
And for helping put Thomas on the Court.
DonCoquixote
(13,950 posts)But if people allow Biden to be sold as sexist, it will enable those who want to scare people from sticking their necks out to actually GET LAWS ON THE BOOKS.
And it will enable those who want to wash off off the books.
former9thward
(33,424 posts)First no one knows how Biden will be portrayed in the movie. That is the only important thing, not whatever the truth might be. Second it was 1991. No one will care about ancient history. Third, how many D primary voters are going to watch the HBO movie? Probably a very small minority given HBO's subscriber base. People on DU are political partisans and do not represent typical D primary voters even to a small degree.
pnwmom
(110,232 posts)And those who didn't see or don't remember the hearings will have an education.
Many movies depicting events in the past cause strong audience reactions in the present. Knowing Kerry Washington's abilities, and having read Anita Hill's book, and remembering the horror of those hearings, I bet this will be one of those movies.
All they will have to do is have Kinnear repeat Biden's performance, word for word. Biden will not come out well. What was excusable in 1991 won't be looked at the same way in 2016.
wheniwasincongress
(1,307 posts)if it's entertaining and well made, people will watch it. People don't have a problem with watching Boardwalk Empire and Deadwood, the movie The Normal Heart took place in eighties and was watched and won tons of awards.
The movie will definitely make it much more likely that he will get asked about his handling of Thomas and Hill. And that will hurt.
wheniwasincongress
(1,307 posts)women who were flown in after being told they could testify, waiting in a hotel room with their lawyers, waiting for the Senate to call them over. never happened under Biden...
politicaljunkie41910
(3,335 posts)I watched the entire hearings. I was on vacation during that time and was spending part of the week in Florida prior to leaving on a cruise, and i spent almost all of the daytime hours in the hotel watching the hearings. I didn't like Clarence Thomas then, and I don't like him today, but I must admit that I had a hard time with Anita Hill's testimony.
As a black woman, I was embarrassed listening to the testimony in which there were no winners as far as I was concerned. The testimony pretty much center around two issues, "whether Thomas made a comment about someone putting pubic hair on his Coke can" and "whether he had discussed an porn star by the name of Long Dong Silver in her presence". I was of the opinion that if Thomas had done what Hill described, that made him a cad, but one which all our mothers and aunts had warned us about. Also, by that time, I had spent 4 years in the military, having entered as a shy naive young girl, with no sexual experience and who had heard everything and had been propositioned on more than one occasion. However, as young and naive as I was, I knew that I didn't have to remain in a place where I didn't feel safe, or listen to sexual innuendo that I was not comfortable with. Hill was older than I was at that time, much older. So while I would guess that I might believe that he was capable of having said those things to her, I don't understand why she would have followed him around from job to job if she truly felt harassed or threatened by him. I wouldn't have and I didn't know anyone who would have, at that time, because my peers and I were all talking about it.
I felt that if she didn't mention it when it had mattered, i.e. when he was at the EEO and the other Agency (don't recall which one at this moment) they worked at, than why was she mentioning it now. It seemed to me that her motivations could have been politically driven and I'm sorry to say, that was the opinion of most of the women I knew and that I worked with at the time. BTW, I was working for the federal government at the time of the hearings, was in my mid twenties, married, and still a relatively naive young woman. It also didn't seem fair to me that Thomas, a black man, should be denied an appointment on this type of he said, she said evidence. Again, I didn't like Thomas. I was a Democrat, he was a Republican, but when he mentioned that the hearing was nothing more than a high-class lynching, I had to agree with him. As someone who had always enjoyed politics since the time I was on the debating team in junior high school, I had never seen such a public spectacle in my short lifetime, and I as a black woman, was embarrassed for both of them, and I felt that there were no winners, only losers.
pnwmom
(110,232 posts)I'm wondering if you would have had the same opinion watching the proceedings if you'd known that there were several other women who wanted to corroborate Anita's story, and who weren't allowed to testify?
And also, how you feel now knowing that David Brock has apologized for his actions against Anita Hill? Including publishing smears about her and engaging in witness intimidation? She lost significant credibility and support due to his actions.
Anita Hill was older during the hearings, but she was in her twenties when she went to work for Thomas. As a shy young woman myself, I didn't think it was that strange that she followed him to a new job, despite his poor behavior. After all, sexual harassment was rampant back then -- I'd encountered it on both my jobs and so had my sister. (We just didn't have a name for it -- like fish don't have a name for water.) So if she'd thought about it at all, she might've thought that, with a new employer, it could have been "out of the frying pan, into the fire."
You clearly had more self-confidence than I did -- which is why, I think, I could more easily empathize with her.
I think she had tried to put the past behind her and not let his behavior bother her. And she didn't decide to come forward and accuse him. But when the facts came out anyway (she had confided in someone years earlier who reported her story to someone else), she decided to tell the truth and face the consequences. Rather than to lie and be part of a cover-up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Hill
There had been little organized opposition to Thomas' nomination, and his confirmation seemed assured[12] until a report of a private interview of Hill by the FBI was leaked to the press.[11][13] The hearings were then reopened, and Hill was called to publicly testify.
SNIP
Four female witnesses waited in the wings to reportedly support Hill's credibility, but they were not called,[13][14] due to what the Los Angeles Times described as a private, compromise deal between "aggressive, gloves-off" Republicans and the Senate Judiciary Committee Chair, Democrat Joe Biden.[15] According to Time magazine, one of the witnesses, Angela Wright, may not have been considered credible on the issue of sexual harassment because she had been fired from the EEOC by Thomas.[14]
Hill agreed to take a polygraph test. The results supported the veracity of her statements
http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,167355,00.html
Brock confesses in a Talk magazine excerpt of his new book, Blinded by the Right, that he had printed "virtually every derogatory and often contradictory allegation" he could to make Hill seem "a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty." If that was all Brock did, we might have nothing more than another sin committed on behalf of the vast right-wing conspiracy. But Brock, who has forged a second career as a recovering conservative, makes one admission that implicates Thomas. Brock says he used information that came indirectly from Thomas to force a retraction from a woman named Kaye Savage, who had come forward in support of Hill. Brock threatened to publicize vicious charges made by her ex-husband in a sealed child-custody dispute.
In an interview with TIME last week, Savage recalled her meeting with Brock in the lobby of the Marriott Hotel in downtown Washington in 1994. A book titled Strange Justice, by reporters Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson, had just come out — and it used on-the-record interviews to argue persuasively that Thomas had indeed subjected a number of women to frequent sexually explicit remarks about porno videos. Savage, a black mid-level aide in the Reagan Administration, told both the authors and the Judiciary Committee (although she wasn't called to testify publicly) that when she went to Thomas' apartment in the early 1980s, the place was littered with graphic photos of nude women. When Savage met Brock, she says, he let her know he could ruin her. "He knew all this personal stuff," she says. "He wanted me to take back what I had said. I couldn't — it was true — but I was intimidated, and so I faxed him something innocuous. I was scared."
SNIP
lame54
(39,364 posts)
ProudToBeBlueInRhody
(16,399 posts)Thomas should have been rejected based on his total incompetence alone, but the Republicans did an outstanding job of white guilting a lot of Dems and making us the racists somehow.
The Thomas Hearings were what really allowed Kid Diddler Rush to rise to power. The ability to tell white conservative males that the Democrat were the "real racists" and therefore making racists jokes was no long verboten on talk radio.
realFedUp
(25,053 posts)First large political event for me that turned me into an activist and started me blogging.
Would never vote for Biden.
ericson00
(2,707 posts)who technically had majorities in Congress at points, but still got run roughshod by GOP presidents, which is why the 1994 election was just a delayed formalization of what occurred in Washington in the 1980s. The Anita case is a prime example.