{"article":{"id":8416,"heading":"Thomas Book Author Says He Lied in His Attacks on Anita Hill","author":"Washington Post","created":"2001-07-04 15:16:57","modified":"2005-08-15 00:36:07","last_modified":"Mon, 15 Aug 2005 07:36:07","article":"
RWWATCH -- July 3, 2001 (please forward)
[This came in without any punctuation, so I added back some of what
was missing. It still may be not 100% restored; see the link before
quoting it. It makes you wonder if this is only coming out now because
of some statute of limitations for libel. -rich cowan ]
June 27, 2001
Thomas Book Author Says He Lied in His Attacks on Anita Hill
by ALEX KUCZYNSKI and WILLIAM GLABERSON
The author of a best-selling book that attacked the credibility of Anita F.
Hill has disavowed its premise, and now says that he lied in print to protect
the reputation of Justice Clarence Thomas.
http:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/news\/593157.asp
Author says he lied about Anita Hill
David Brocks new book Blinded by the Right claims he was exploited
By Howard Kurtz THE WASHINGTON POST
June 27 -- David Brock, who made his name trashing Anita Hill after the
Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, now says he lied and he's sorry. The
formerly right-wing author, in a forthcoming book, says he lost my soul in
printing allegations he knew to be untrue. Brock writes that he was dumping
virtually every derogatory and often contradictory allegation I had
collected on Hill into the vituperative mix.
\"I not only wrote a book I now believe was wrong, I consciously lied in print
in a book review on this subject. I think I owe a debt to the historical
record to correct it. \"
BROCK NOW CHARGES that Supreme Court Justice
Thomas used him to spread derogatory information about one of Thomas's critics
an allegation strongly denied yesterday by the man who Brock says was the
intermediary between them. Thomas was complicit in an effort to discredit
another witness against him with negative personal information, which is
exactly what he claimed the Anita Hill forces had done to him, Brock said in
an interview. Thomas declined to comment through a court spokeswoman. Brocks
new book, Blinded by the Right, which continues his recent renunciation of
his conservative past, is excerpted in the August issue of Talk magazine.
NEW CONFESSIONS
Why is he confessing now? \"I not only wrote a book I now
believe was wrong, I consciously lied in print in a book review on this
subject,\" he said from his Washington home. \"I think I owe a debt to the
historical record to correct it. If I made a mistake here, the mistake would
be that I knew these facts five years ago and didn't disclose them. \"
Brock rose to prominence with his best-selling 1993 book _The Real Anita Hill_
calling the woman who accused Thomas of making offensive sexual remarks a
little bit nutty and a little bit slutty and became a star anti-Clinton
writer for the American Spectator. In the Anita Hill book, he now writes, \"I
demonized Democratic senators, their staffs and Hills feminist supporters
without ever interviewing any of them. . . . I was so blinded by my partisan
tunnel vision and my tortured desire to make it in the movement that I
believed my own propaganda.\" At one party, he says, Thomas's wife, Ginni,
tearfully embraced me. Hill, who now teaches at Brandeis University, wants to
keep her reaction personal and private, spokesman Dennis Nealon said.
The most startling section of this about-face involves Brocks attempt to
discredit Strange Justice, a 1994 book on the Hill-Thomas clash by Jane Mayer
and Jill Abramson. As a witting cog in the Republican sleaze machine, Brock
writes, he had access to Thomas through an intermediary, Mark Paoletta, a
close Thomas friend who worked on his confirmation as a lawyer in the first
Bush White House.
PLAYING DIRTY
Confirmation that Thomas frequently rented porno tapes made
Hills entire story much more plausible, Brock writes.
According to Brock, Thomas passed along, through Paoletta, unverified
embarrassing personal information about his friend [Kaye] Savage that Thomas
claimed had been raised against her in a divorce proceeding. . . . Thomas was
playing dirty, and so was I. Savage, who had made some disparaging comments
about Thomas in Strange Justice, soon got a visit from Brock. Armed with the
personal information, Brock says, he demanded that Savage give me a written
statement retracting the statements in Strange Justice . . . or I would
blacken her name, just as I had done to every other woman who had impugned
Thomass reputation.He says Savage later faxed him a statement backing off her
earlier criticism. Paoletta, who now works for a House committee, called the
account simply not true. Justice Thomas did not ask me to pass along any
derogatory information to David Brock about Kaye Savage. Savage said in an
interview that I feel grateful to Mr. Brock that he has admitted he tried to
intimidate me and appreciate that the public record is now clear. . . . I
think it takes a great deal of courage. She called her experience with Brock
a little frightening. Brock says he also tried to blow away Mayer and
Abramson's contention that Thomas had been a frequent customer at the X-rated
video store Graffiti during the early 1980s, when Hill alleged he had
graphically discussed such videos with her. According to Brock, Thomas
confirmed, again through Paoletta, that he often rented pornographic videos
from Graffiti. Confirmation that Thomas frequently rented porno tapes made
Hills entire story much more plausible, Brock writes. Nevertheless, in a
Spectator review of Strange Justice, Brock wrote that there was no evidence
that Thomas had ever rented a single X-rated video, dismissing the book as
one of the most outrageous journalistic hoaxes in recent memory. When I wrote
those words, Brock admits in his new book, I knew they were false. Paoletta
said he did not confirm to David Brock that Justice Thomas ever rented videos
from the Graffiti video store. In fact, to this day, I do not personally know
whether he in fact rented videos from that store. . . . Why in the world
would I say anything to hurt him? Mayer, now a New Yorker staff writer, said
yesterday: Im glad he's finally confessed the truth, which we knew all along,
which is that he fabricated material, suppressed evidence and falsified the
record in order to undermine the truth, which is what we wrote in the first
place. I'm sorry that he waited so long. It was personally painful.
CREDIBILITY PROBLEMS
Abramson, now Washington bureau chief of the New York
Times, said that the problem with Brock's credibility is that once you admit
youve knowingly written false things, how do you know when to believe what he
writes? . . . It'd be awfully convenient to now say because what he's writing is
personally pleasing to me that he's a 100 percent solid reporter. That would
be a little disingenuous. While relations have thawed to the point that Brock
spoke to a class Abramson was teaching at Princeton last fall, I still have
quite a bit of contempt for the kind of journalism he practiced, she said.
Advertisement
Activist Barbara Ledeen yesterday challenged one part of the Brock excerpt in
which he maintains that the two of them wrote a radio script attacking
Strange Justice and faxed it to Rush Limbaugh, who is said to have used it on
his radio show. I completely deny that, Ledeen said. I have never done
anything with David Brock except attend a few parties. Limbaugh said he had
no recollection of receiving such a script. Ledeen, who now works for the
Senate Republican leadership, laughingly dismissed Brocks contention that she
threatened to firebomb his house after he wrote a sympathetic biography of
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