Posted on 06/21/2005 7:09:33 PM PDT by paulat
Patricia Ireland, president of the National Organization for Women, told a news conference that while she was offended by the president's behavior, "it does not rise to the level of impeachable offense."
Pioneering feminist activist Betty Friedan joined in, saying: "It does not serve women to try to hound this president out of office on charges of sexual misdoing."
She added: "I fear that we are on the brink of an era of sexual McCarthyism."
The group -- which also includes Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority; Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers; and Yvonne Scruggs-Leftwich, executive director of the Black Leadership Forum -- called on their supporters to press their elected officials to oppose Clinton's removal from office.
The women said that Clinton has done more for women's rights than any modern president, despite his alleged crimes and admitted sexual misdeeds with a White House intern.
"If we allow this (impeachment) process to continue," said Kathy Rodgers, the executive director of the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, "the interests of women in particular will be buried in the muck for generations to come."
Smeal warned that the sex scandal threatens to depress female voter turnout in the Nov. 3 off-year congressional elections.
"We must not allow our disgust or disillusionment to keep women from the polls in November," Smeal said.
snip
"We risk not only losing the gains of the Year of Women in 1992 in the 1998 congressional elections, but we risk years of reactionary control of both Houses of Congress and perhaps the presidency itself," Smeal said.
You too!
That Smeal disgusts me to the max.
Thirty years of whining, and here was the pinicle test case for Executive abuse of a powerless female employee.
"She got what she wanted!" Lord almighty!
The executive exploited her and laid her off. No problem!
I tend to agree. If they nominate a replacement justice AND elevate an existing justice to Chief Justice, they will have 2 fights on their hands. The Dems could throw a wrench into the works by winning either fight. This would be an unnecessary waste of resources.
I tell ya...they have a plan....
Isn't it interesting?
The 153 women, Democrat and Republican, local and Washington, who provided evidence that Bill Clinton was a serial molester and even a rapist, were all "right wing sluts," but Anita Hill must be believed, even though she has no rational basis for her claims?
Hill had not lodged a complaint in the ten years after the alleged harassment. Also she sought to continue working for Thomas when he moved to the EEOC from the Department of Education, despite the alleged history of harassment. Hill's advocates argued that Hill was merely trying to further her career and that, despite the fact that she was a Yale Law graduate, she had no other options for employment.
Almost all of Thomas's former female associates and employees supported him over Hill. As Senator Joseph Lieberman stated at the time, "I have contacted associates, women who worked with Judge Thomas during his time at the Department of Education and EEOC, and in the calls that I and my staff have made there has been universal support for Judge Thomas and a clear indication by all of the women we spoke to that there was never, certainly not, a case of sexual harassment, and not even a hint of impropriety." Many of those former female associates testified on Thomas's behalf. For example, Nancy Altman from the Department of Education testified: "I consider myself a feminist. I am pro-choice. I care deeply about women's issues. In addition to working with Clarence Thomas at the Department of Education, I shared an office with him for two years in this building. Our desks were a few feet apart. Because we worked in such close quarters, I could hear virtually every conversation for two years that Clarence Thomas had. Not once in those two years did I ever hear Clarence Thomas make a sexist or offensive comment, not once. . . . It is not credible that Clarence Thomas could have engaged in the kinds of behavior that Anita Hill alleges, without any of the women who he worked closest with -- dozens of us, we could spend days having women come up, his secretaries, his chief of staff, his other assistants, his colleagues -- without any of us having sensed, seen or heard something."
Hill's detractors also pointed to many contradictions in her testimony. For example, she initially denied any knowledge of a news report that Senate staffers had told her that "her signed affidavit alleging sexual harassment by Clarence Thomas would be the instrument that would quietly and behind the scenes, would force him to withdraw his name." Senator Arlen Specter said that after consulting with her lawyers, Hill "flatly changed" her testimony "by identifying a Senate staffer, who she finally said told her that she was told that if she came forward, [Thomas] would withdraw . . . ." Senator Specter went on to say that "the testimony of Professor Hill in the morning was flat out perjury and that she specifically changed it in the afternoon when confronted with the possibility of being contradicted."
Another issue arose with respect to Hill's treatment of the phone logs that Thomas's secretary had kept for him at the EEOC. Those logs showed that Hill had called Thomas about a dozen times since leaving the EEOC for a career as a law professor, including one time when Hill called Thomas's office to notify him that she was visiting D.C.; in that message, she had left her hotel room number and phone number with Thomas's secretary. Hill initially told the Washington Post that the phone logs were "garbage," and then implied in her opening statement to the Senate that the phone logs had mostly represented the times when Hill had called to speak to Diane Holt, Thomas's secretary.
Under questioning, however, Hill admitted that "I do not deny the accuracy of these messages." Moreover, Diane Holt testified that if Hill had ever called to speak with Holt, that call would not have been recorded in Thomas's phone logs. Holt further testified that the phone log represented only the occasions when Thomas had been unavailable to take the call. In fact, Hill had additionally called Thomas on several other occasions that were not recorded in the logs because Thomas took the call.
Hill also contradicted herself in attempting to explain the reasons for having called Thomas. At one point, she claimed that "the things that occurred after I left the EEOC occurred during a time -- any matter, calling him from the university, occurred during a time when he was no longer a threat to me of any kind. He could not threaten my job. I already had tenure there." But later in the same session, Senator Simpson asked her, "if what you say this man said to you occurred, why in God's name, when he left his position of power or status or authority over you, and you left it in 1983, why in God's name would you ever speak to a man like that the rest of your life?" Hill responded, "That's a very good question. And I'm sure that I cannot answer that to your satisfaction. That is one of the things that I have tried to do today. I have suggested that I was afraid of retaliation. I was afraid of damage to my professional life."
In the end, the Committee did not find sufficient evidence to corroborate Anita Hill's claim. Hill's supporters later insisted that relevant testimony from Angela Wright, a PR director for the EEOC and a witness to the alleged offensive conduct, was suppressed, even though the Democrats controlled the Senate. (Democrats were reluctant to call Angela Wright as a witness after Thomas testified that he had fired her for calling another employee a "faggot.")
Chew on that, Ms. Winfrey.
Sexual harassment laws are simply a political tool of the left to use against people they don't like. What does that have to do with having wives and daughters?
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