by Alex Christy at newsbusters.org
Washington Post associate editor Ruth Marcus joined Tuesday’s edition of Andrea Mitchell Reports on MSNBC to talk about the day’s Senate hearing on “ethics reform” and to claim that “any reasonable person” should conclude it is “all so really disturbing” that Republicans played clips of Clarence Thomas in his 1991 confirmation hearing talking about a “high-tech lynching.”
Washington correspondent Yamiche Alcindor had just referenced the playing of the famous clip when Mitchell tossed the conversation over to Marcus, but not before she got a chance to play the sexism card, “Well that takes us back, Ruth, because you and I covered the 1991 hearings of Clarence Thomas versus Anita Hill from an all-male Judiciary Committee.”
After reading a letter from former federal judge Michael Luttig, Mitchell claimed that most of the talk is about Thomas is because the revelation that he has a rich friend is just so noteworthy, “So, Ruth we focus on Clarence Thomas because of the revelations that Harlan Crow, a very prominent billionaire Republican contributor, friend of Clarence Thomas, bought his mother’s house, renovated it in addition to supporting Clarence Thomas in around the world trips, without any disclosure on his disclosure forms.”
A solemn Marcus agreed, “Yes, in a better world, Andrea, in a serious world, that story would have prompted two things. It would have prompted soul searching among the justices about whether they are doing enough to make sure that their behavior is, as Judge Luttig — he was almost Justice Luttig, by the way–, as Judge Luttig said, whether their behavior was up to the proper standards and if not, what they needed to do about it.”
In a serious world, MSNBC would ask why all these concerns about the Court and ethics are going after conservative justices and not liberal ones, but Marcus isn’t a serious person. Instead, she continued, “It also would have sparked a — and I know this is an imaginary world I’m talking about– a bipartisan conversation among members of the judiciary about what role they can and should play in getting there.”