MUST-READ: 29-tweet Kurt Eichenwald thread defending Joe Biden re Anita Hill hearing

[highplainsdem]

Eichenwald downloaded the hearing transcripts and spent a week reading them.

His thread about what he found starts here:

Link to tweet

I'm not going to try to copy that here, either all the different links for the tweets, or the text of the tweets, which really should be read with the sections of the transcipt he presents, which are in images.

But please look at that to see how unfair much of the criticism of Joe Biden has been.

[elleng]

1. Thanks

[PoliticAverse]

2. And here's what Anita Hill says on the issue...

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/anita-hill-joe-biden_n_5002189

[UniteFightBack]

3. Hey Biden Bashers....there is a big difference between "I don't like what Joe did" and I don't like

Joe...Got it? That goes for all the candidates.

About this Anita Hill thing, it ain't a thang to me. I'm sorry but I don't care. Is that wrong of me? We all know that Thomas is skank and she is not and it took place in a different time. End of story.

People want to talk about the future.

[emmaverybo]

4. More complex issues than we tend to talk about

Thomas, who would go on to be only the second black man in history to become an SC justice, claimed during the proceedings that the hearing was a lynch party. Certainly, many who watched felt the members should have been far more aggressive with Thomas. They held their punches, the Dems, which was extremely disappointing. On the other hand, Thomas was on solid historical ground in his protest, which he made in no uncertain terms. Implied was that once again a black man was smeared with the myth of unbridled sexual aggression in addition to being held back from one of the most prestigious and powerful offices in the land.
The Republicans put Dems in a delicate bind. Biden got the blame. Hill perceived him as having drastically blown his responsibility. But there were in fact competing perceptions and claims.
And everyone acted partly, perhaps to a larger extent, out of politics. Ted Kennedy noticeably held back. It seemed not so much that Hill was being demeaned as that Thomas was being given a pass.
It seemed the members cared more about Thomas’s reputation, his future, than hers. Many who observed felt what was at stake was their own reputations as standing against racism.

[aikoaiko]

5. I'll wait until his tries to publish this and his editors vet it.

[peggysue2]

6. Thanks for that link, highplainsdem

Good background material/research from Eichenwald.