The Bizarro World of Juan Williams and Clarence Thomas

[Better Believe It]

October 26, 2010

The Bizarro World of Juan Williams and Clarence Thomas
Sold Brothers
By CLARENCE LUSANE
Clarence Lusane is a Professor at American University and the former editor of the journal Black Political Agenda.


Williams is not the only black conservative drawing support from his white counterparts. For those who thought that Clarence Thomas was the chief nutcase in the Thomas household, Virginia Thomas has dramatically disabused that notion. Unlike her husband who can sit for years hearing cases before the Supreme Court and not utter a single word, apparently Ginni Thomas can’t shut up. Her out-of-nowhere call to Hill demanding an apology is of course more revealing about the audacity of a closed mind than the truth about Hill’s charges. Not satisfied with being exposed by the New York Times and other analysts about an unseemly conflict-of-interest between her conservative campaign to stop what she terms Obama’s tyranny and her husband’s position to facilitate that objective, she ups the ante by rehashing the Thomas-Hill controversy. If one can believe that she has perhaps some iota of rationality left in her brain and that the call had a strategic purpose and was not just a spontaneous moment of venom and long-suppressed rage, then the picture becomes a little clearer.

Finally, it should be noted that Williams and Thomas have been linked for at least two decades. During his days as a Post reporter in 1991, Williams came to Thomas’ defense after Hill’s explosive charges threatened to derail the nomination. He wrote that Anita Hill had “no credible evidence” and wrongly charged that she had been “prompted” by Democratic Senate staffers to make her accusations. His admiration for Thomas has continued over the years. Following Obama’s election, Williams wrote in the Wall Street Journal that his victory, along with the achievements of Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and Clarence Thomas, signaled “the end of an era for black politics,” i.e., the Jacksons and Sharptons of the world would become nostalgia. Williams’ framework, however, fails to explain the close working relationship that has developed between Obama and Sharpton.

Beyond his political defense of Thomas the two have more in common than Williams wants us to remember. Around the time of the Thomas hearings, Williams was disciplined by the Washington Post for his own sexual harassment issues involving women at the paper. As journalist Bonnie Erbe notes, he was disciplined by the Post and forced to admit publicly that he engaged in “wrong” and “inappropriate” conduct. At one point, more than 100 Post newsroom employees sent a letter to the paper’s management challenging statements made by Willams downplaying the complaints against him. According to the Dallas Morning News, the situation was so dire that he was forced “to sit in an isolated part of the newsroom where he could be watched at all times.” He left the paper eventually.

Conservative attacks on NPR have little to do with the substance of the case involving Williams and more to do with what is perceived to be an opening to attack non-right-wing media. Palin, DeMint and others hope to chill any news coverage that does not favor their extremist agenda even if that means left-baiting NPR. Along with Ginni Thomas, they seek any opportunity to mobilize their base against real or imagined liberal bias or progressive advancement. Williams and Thomas both sold their soul to the right-wing devil many moons ago. No tears should be shed for either one let alone any offer of apologies.

Read the full article at:

http://www.counterpunch.org/lusane10262010.html

[dkf]

1. Juan Williams is a conservative?

Really?

[demosincebirth]

2. Ditto.

[enough]

3. Yes, really. Hadn't you noticed? The totally reliable purveyor of conventional wisdom.

Did you think he was something other than that?

[Gabi Hayes]

4. lots of people don't pay attention to anything but the most superficial retelling of events.

this post puts the lie to any sort of interpretation that Williams is any sort of liberal

at the old Salon Table Talk there was a thread about Talk of the Nation that lasted for YEARS, literally. thousands and thousands of posts, a whole bunch of them detailing the sleazy details of the above mention Post harrassment travesty, his many lies in service to his real masters at Fox, along with his servile support of Thomas' abominable nomination, and the disgusting treatment (with his avid approval) of Anita Hill

[dkf]

5. Not being a doctrinaire liberal doesn't mean you are a conservative.

Neither does saying sexually offensive things make you a conservative.

What is the totality of his positions that makes you define him this way?

[demigoddess]

6. you can't work at fox news without proving that you are a republican

and while there you have to parrot the daily lines of propaganda, which is what he was doing during the incident which got him fired. Just imagine if I had said the same thing about black men? would I have kept a job, any job? Juan williams would probably have been on the front line of asking me just how racist was I? the only difference is that muslims are linked to the 9/11 attack.

[dkf]

8. Didn't Obama say his grandmother said something similar about black men?

What if I said I was nervous seeing men while walking to my parking garage at 10:00 pm at night? Should I be fired if I ever expressed that? Does acknowledging a non pc visceral reaction mean a person should be fired?

[_ed_]

9. He is neither liberal nor conservative

He's just a conventional-wisdom hack from the Beltway. I've always thought that he's intellectually incapable of real analysis. The man is an idiot.

[SpiralHawk]

7. Wow, Williams is as much of a RepubliPIG as Clarence

What Sick Family Pharisee Values the Republicons embrace...