[Again, a tad late, imo, is better than not at all, right? --MS] UNDERNEWS EXTRA THE REAL DANFORTH REPORT July 25, 2000 For more than 35 years, Washington's most unofficial source THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW Editor: Sam Smith 1312 18th St. NW #502, Washington DC 20036 202-835-0770 Fax: 835-0779 E-MAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------------------------------- THE REAL DANFORTH REPORT The so-called Danforth Report has predictably exonerated the government participants in the Waco massacre. But the accuracy of this document is seriously called into question by an another Danforth report, written six years earlier, in the form of a bizarre and self-damning exoneration of Clarence Thomas. After reading Danforth's "Resurrection," one should be loathe to ask the author for the correct time, let alone any questions of greater complexity or ethical content. It is important to bear in mind that this political and media icon, near veepster, and prospective Dubya appointee holds both a divinity and law degree from Yale Thus he came to the Thomas matter as a person professing allegiance to higher moral standards than, say, your average political hit man. Yet page after page, Danforth displays remarkable ethical entropy, indifference to facts, a willingness to muck around in the gutter, and a sanctimonious self-justification that is almost, well, cult-like. Because of Danforth's efforts to send Waco down the memory hole and the likelihood that we will hear of him again should Bush win, a few points about his strange book are worth noting: *** Danforth knew Thomas wasn't qualified for the court. Danforth never admits this but hands us the evidence: -- Danforth, who had hired Thomas while Missouri attorney general, dispenses with Thomas' virtues in two pages of trivial anecdotes, including the fact that as a judge he was nice to a black employee of the Senate Commerce Committee. He adds: "My support for Clarence Thomas had nothing to do with Clarence the person. I assumed President Bush could nominate any number of qualified individuals. . . I also assumed that there were many people more experienced and with better legal ability than Clarence. Certainly Clarence was intelligent enough to do the work on the Supreme Court, but he had served only a short time on the court of appeals, and most of his professional experience was not in the practice of law but in administering. . ." -- "It seemed to me that because of his brief history as a lawyer and a judge, Clarence's first challenge was to get a 'qualified' rating by the American Bar Association. I thought as well that senators seeking to defeat him would keep him before the committee for a prolonged period of time, peppering him with difficult questions in an effort to show that he did not know enough law to serve on the highest court in the land." [In fact, Thomas ended up in near the bottom of the only class for which records are available. All other records are under seal, although Thomas presumably could have unsealed them. Thomas' high point while working for Danforth in Missouri was to win a case in support of the governor's decision to abolish vanity license plates. Thomas then went on to be counsel for Monsanto, where, as Newsweek put it, "he learned the law of pesticides, fungicides and rodinicides." At the time of his Supreme Court appointment, Judge Thomas had written just 20 decisions. Further, Bush had named 73 judges in his first two years, but only two of them were black, including Thomas. Thus, as Danforth undoubtedly knew, Bush did not have much of a pool to choose from if he was looking for a black nominee. And there is little doubt that is what was in the GOP's mind. The Sunday before Thomas was nominated, Orin Hatch appeared on the David Brinkley Show and was pressed to name some potential court choices. He said: "Well, you have --you'd have to start with people like Ken Starr, the current solicitor general. And I think the president will have to look to minorities, such as our person on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals [pauses] -- Fernando Fernandez I believe is his name. There's a fellow down on a district court down in Texas. Edith Jones, a wonderful woman jurist from the south. You could go on and on. Our current black judge on the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, he'd be a terrific choice." Hatch couldn't even remember the name of the guy he would soon be assiduously defending. But he sure knew the color of Clarence Thomas' skin.] *** Danforth and others coached Thomas over long periods of time, in order to give his colleagues and the American public a false impression of Thomas' abilities. -- "Study for the hearing did not begin in earnest until after Congress recessed in early August. Seven days a week, the routine was the same. Mike Luttig gave Clarence large notebooks, each covering an area of the law. For example, there were two notebooks on the right of privacy, which includes the abortion issue. Each notebook contained the text of important cases and law review articles on the subject. The material was voluminous. Clarence got up between four and six o'clock every morning to being reading the notebook of the day. Every afternoon, Clarence and Mike met for two to five hours, usually at Clarence's house. Mike, who had done his own preparation in the morning, asked Clarence questions -- about court opinions, about dissents, even about footnotes to cases. The Mike, the process resembled a study group at law school." -- "In fact, Luttig himself did not know how Clarence would rule as a judge. In Mike's eyes, Clarence had been 'much more of a political person than he was a judicial or a lawyer person.'" *** Danforth knew that Thomas lacked the temperament to be a good justice. -- "Luttig explained to Clarence the perils of giving public voice to his anger at attacks. If Clarence were to say what he thought, the next criticism would be that he lacked judicial temperament . . . Throughout the confirmation process, Luttig worried that Clarence's strong feelings and passion to speak out would hurt him. Always, Clarence's first reaction to a charge was shock and outrage." -- "On Wednesday night, Clarence did not sleep at all. Ginni [his wife]stared to sleep, but was soon awake with her husband's tossing turning at her side. He got out of bed and was on the floor. Ginni describes it as 'like something was inside of him, physically, like there was this battle going on inside of him.'" -- "Mike arrived at about nine o'clock and was sitting at the conference table when Clarence came in. He stood as Clarence closed the door. Clarence broke down immediately. He headed toward the conference table in what Mike describes as 'loud tears.' He began to stagger and seemed to collapse. Mike caught him halfway between the door and the table and 'almost carried him over to the conference table. Clarence was crying and hyperventilating.' . . . For about fifteen minutes, Clarence was 'just wailing.'" *** Danforth deceived his senatorial colleagues. -- "I was asking fellow senators to make public statements of support without disclosing to them that the Hill allegation was in the possession of the Judiciary Committee . . . I think that if I have any standing in the Senate, it is because my colleagues trust me. I have tried to win that trust by telling them the truth and not being devious. Now I was urging them to act without telling them about a charge that could cause them to act differently. Still, the strategy of trying to get senators to commit to Clarence was clearly correct." *** Danforth knew that Thomas did not react in a way typical of someone certain of their innocence. -- "At 0:45 AM on Wednesday September 25, Lee Liberman phoned Clarence at his home to tell him that the white House had received another allegation. . . Clarence describes his reaction to the call as 'panic.'" -- Danforth quotes Thomas' wife: "What it felt like is that Clarence still had some sin his life and he had to get that out in order to be open to the Holy Spirit and that he had a vestige of sin, that he was in this furnace and God wasn't going to let him keep going without eliminating this vestige of sin." *** Danforth displays an abysmal indifference to facts, preferring ex cathedra exculpation of Thomas and supporters and ad hominem attacks on his critics. *** Danforth performed various sleazy or propagandistic tasks without remorse. -- "My appearance on 'Face the Nation' was the beginning of my effort to destroy the credibility of Anita Hill. In the past four days, I had had a deeply spiritual experience. There would be no spiritual content to what would follow. When I put my hands on Clarence's shoulders on Friday morning and said, 'Go forth in the name of Christ, trusting in the power of the Holy Spirit," I acted as a minister. Now I would begin to act like a street fighter. No question about the propriety of doing this crossed my mind." -- "Of course, I had never met Anita Hill. I had no expertise in psychology or psychiatry. I was not in a forum where my comments could be challenged successfully. I was in a fifteen-minute segment of a talk show, and I was accusing a perfect stranger of having a psychiatric condition." -- "Now there was a new possibility: to establish Clarence's credibility behind a doubt by destroying the credibility of Anita Hill . . . I knew that Anita Hill was going to be demolished." *** Danforth deceived his own readers. Known to the committee, but mainly reported by the alternative media (including TPR 12/91]was the fact that three key witnesses supported Hill's allegations but were never called to testify because, by that time, both the Democrats and the Republicans on the committee had apparently decided to take a dive on the Thomas case. Danforth mentions only one of these witnesses, Angela Wright, whom he says had been fired been three times, once by Thomas, but never cites her deposition corroborating Hill. This is typical of Danforth who seemed to make up his mind swiftly on such matters based on convenient tidbits from the right sources. The two other women are not mentioned at all. *** Danforth made dubious, some might even say blasphemous, use of the Christian faith to pursue his tawdry ends. -- "So I took Clarence into a bathroom and punched the button of a tape player, and a song came on that is rarely heard anymore in Christian churches. It is considered far too bellicose for today's believers Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war! And when Clarence left my office for the Caucus Room, it was not as a martyr with his eyes fixed on heaven. It was as a warrior doing battle for the Lord." -- He called his book "Resurrection." -- He ends his book with these extraordinary words: "Clarence Thomas walked into the Senate Caucus Room, took his seat at the witness table, and commenced his testimony. Clarence had risen. Alleluia.!" *** This is the man who was entrusted to investigate the deaths of those who had followed another leader who misused religion for his own puerile purposes. Danforth was clearly not the right person for the job and his latest report, like his book, must be regarded with deep suspicion. 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