How Do They Know?

THE MAJORITY is right to say Clarence Thomas should not be confirmed to the Supreme Court. He should not.

Thomas is just not qualified. He has served on the D.C. Court of Appeals for only one year--and written only one opinion in that position. Before that, he was a controversial administrator whose record proved only that he agreed with Ronald Reagan that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was a useless organization. Thomas is not much of a legal scholar--certainly not one of the nine best in the nation.

And Thomas has allowed the politics of his nomination to affect his views. His backtracking on natural law and abortion are reprehensible.

The staff could have focused on Thomas's qualifications. It could have mentioned any one of his myriad conservative stances, with which it strongly disagrees.

But the staff's reasoning in rejecting Thomas hinges on its odd statement that "we don't believe [Thomas]" in his most recent denials. Wow. In a couple of paragraphs that ignore the complexity of the hearings, The Crimson, as if privy to the depths of Thomas's and Anita Hill's thoughts, ignores the doubts which frustrate the nation as it grapples with the fate of Thomas's career. The Crimson simply "believes" Thomas harassed Hill.

How on earth does The Crimson know whether Thomas harassed her? He had every reason to lie and his accuser seemed credible--this is true. But this should never be enough for someone to "believe" without qualification that someone else is lying. This is at least arrogant.

Even more, it flies in the face of reason. Unlike judges of the Middle Ages, this society does not decide guilt or innocence on the basis of who seems more credible or who has committed sins in the past. The Crimson seems to advocate trial not by evidence but by past actions and possible motives only.

It's ludicrous to suggest that we should decide truth and falsity only on the basis of who has lied before and who seems more honest. If the staff wants to posit this as a standard for all decisions about truth, how would it handle a case in which someone accused by a "credible" witness of murder has lied (or even murdered) before? By the staff's standard, The Crimson would "believe" the suspect was guilty even before the evidence was presented.

But let's play their game. Let's base the whole decision on who we find more credible--Hill or Thomas--and on who has lied before.

"Hill's story is convincing," the staff says. Why? Because she would have to be "psychotic" to lie. Why? "Hill had everything to lose by coming forward," The Crimson intones. Really?

Hill admitted that a staffer to Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) told her Thomas would "quietly" drop out if she let the Judiciary Committee and the FBI approach Thomas with the issue--without even using her name. Later, Sen. Joseph R. Biden (D-Del.) told Hill she would not have to go public. From her standpoint, she did not have everything to lose by coming forward. She could just hide behind the committee and avoid the "intensely traumatic" process.

Hill "comes off as a brave, suffering and credible witness," the majority says. Only the most biased observer could argue that Thomas did not. I wanted to believe Hill. I wanted not to believe Thomas. But even though he's dodged questions before and asserted idiotically that he never thought about Roe, I cannot say with certainty that I "believe" he is lying now.

He wavered several times from tears to rage, just as Hill did. And without any of the flustered testimony that characterized his dodging in the first set of hearings, he categorically denied ever harassing Hill. Both had panel after panel of witnesses testify to their integrity. Both wrestled with inconsistencies in statements.

It's just not clear that we should believe one or the other.