Supremely Bad Judgment By MAUREEN DOWD

[Demeter]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/opinion/24dowd.html?src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB

...Years later, some of the Democrats on that all-male, all-white Senate Judiciary Committee told me they assumed there must have been a consensual romance between the boss and his subordinate. McEwen assumed so, too, because Clarence took Anita with him when he changed agencies. Hill has made it clear she felt no reciprocal attraction.

Joe Biden, the senator who ran those hearings, was leery of the liberal groups eager to use Hill as a pawn to checkmate Thomas. He circumscribed the testimony of women who could have corroborated Hill’s unappetizing portrait of a power-abusing predator.

For the written record, Biden allowed negative accounts only from women who had worked with Thomas. He also ruled out testimony from women who simply had personal relationships with Thomas, and did not respond to a note from McEwen — a former assistant U.S. attorney who had once worked as a counsel for Biden’s committee — reminding him of her long relationship with Thomas.

It’s too late to relitigate the shameful Thomas-Hill hearings. We’re stuck with a justice-for-life who lied his way onto the bench with the help of bullying Republicans and cowed Democrats...


GOOD OLD, GOOD-FOR-NOTHING JOE BIDEN--I THANK MAUREEN DOWD FOR REVEALING WHAT THE SENATE WAS (OR WASN'T) THINKING AT THIS MOMENT OF CRISIS...AND I KNOW WE HAVEN'T HEARD THE LAST OF THIS FIASCO.

[Skittles]

1. yup

and lots of DUers think Biden is such a FINE man

[peacebird]

2. Biden is a fine man, that doesn't mean he has never made a mistake. Just like making an error in

judgement does not mean he is not a good and fine person.

What is it? You expect them to be perfect?

How about we let the expectation that our politicians must be perfect drop at least until WE ourselves are perfect.

Biden is a fine man, and he has been a fine honorable politician.

[katandmoon]

4. There is nothing honorable about his whoredom for credit card companies, or the way he

threw Anita Hill under the bus. He was disgusting.

[Skittles]

6. oh but don't you know?

Obama picked him so PRESTO! He is a fine man! GET WITH THE PROGRAM katandmoon!!!

[meowomon]

7. OMG, I forgot!!

We aren't allowed to criticize anything that the president does or says! We have to be just like the rethuglicans or we'll get kicked out of the party!

[femrap]

9. +1000 nt

[Skittles]

5. LOLOL

I remember when it happened and it was SICKENING - why did Biden go to bat for such a fucking conservative WHORE? Clarence Thomas is quite possibly the worst Supreme Court judge EVER.

[MannyGoldstein]

8. It's not like he voted for something astonishing like invading Iraq

Oh wait...

[ixion]

10. Biden is a politician, and as such

cannot be a 'fine' man.

And this was not a "mistake." This was an orchestrated effort to sway the outcome.

[Demeter]

12. I really don't think we are talking about the same person

[katandmoon]

3. Thank you. I don't. Never have, never will. Corporate whoredom at its worst.

[Bitwit1234]

11. Well we can go around the Mulberry Bush and blame Thurgood Marshall

for retiring. I mean after all if he hadn't retired, if he had waited four months or so, when Clinton won the next election, then we wouldn't have had Clarence Thomas and we wouldn't have had Bush appointed president.

Now you can't blame Marshall for retiring, as well as you can't blame Biden for not allowing women who were not under the employ of Thomas for testifying. THE PERSON TO BLAME IS BUSH SR WHO APPOINTED THIS ABSOLUTE PIECE OF S**T.