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Politics

Thomas attacks Hill, others in memoir

By Washington Post
Published September 29, 2007

WASHINGTON - Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas settles scores in an angry and vivid memoir, scathingly condemning the media, the Democratic senators who opposed his nomination and the "mob" of liberal elites and activist groups who he says desecrated his life.

Breaking his 16-year public silence on his bitter confirmation hearings, Thomas says Anita Hill was a "mediocre" employee who was used by political opponents to make claims that she had been sexually harassed.

My Grandfather's Son, for which Thomas has received a reported $1.5-million, is a 289-page memoir of his life in rural Georgia, his reliance on religious faith and his rise to the Supreme Court. It contains only fleeting mentions of his time on the bench.

Thomas lovingly describes the iron-willed grandfather who raised him after his own father abandoned him as a toddler and gives a detailed description of the confirmation hearings that electrified the nation in 1991 and the allegations by Hill that he said destroyed his reputation.

Thomas writes that Hill was the tool of liberal activist groups "obsessed" with abortion and outraged because he did not fit their idea of what an African-American should believe.

"The mob I now faced carried no ropes or guns," Thomas writes of his hearings. "Its weapons were smooth-tongued lies spoken into microphones and printed on the front pages of America's newspapers. ... But it was a mob all the same, and its purpose - to keep the black man in his place - was unchanged."

Thomas, 59, says in the foreword to the book, due to go on sale Monday, that he wrote it to "leave behind an accurate record of my own life as I remember it" rather than leave it to those "with careless hands or malicious hearts."

He indicates that he wrote it himself, with editing help from three others.

It has been eagerly awaited, especially in the conservative community, which is playing an active role in promoting it. The Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society and the National Center for Policy Analysis are sponsoring a six-city book tour, where patrons will pay $30 to attend events in Thomas' honor.

The normally media-shy justice has interviews booked on 60 Minutes Sunday night and ABC on Monday and a 90-minute interview with Rush Limbaugh, also scheduled for Monday.

Thomas writes of the hard lessons doled out by his grandfather, Myers Anderson, who raised him after his father abandoned the family and his mother was unable to care for her boys in Pin Point, Ga. He depicts a man unsparingly tough who wouldn't let him play on sports teams or join the Cub Scouts.

[Last modified September 29, 2007, 01:17:27]