Capitol Games
Phelps, Timothy M. & Wintemitz, Helen
T he problems with Timothy Phelps and Helen Winternitz's Capitol Games: Clarence Thomas, Anita Hill, and the Story of a Supreme Court Nomination begin with its title and end with its last sentence....
...World's #1 Service...
...Your ad(s) will begin with the first available issue...
...Phelps, who covers Washington politics for Newsday, was the second reporter (after Nina Totenberg of National Public Radio) to get Anita Hill to talk about her charges on the record...
...The picture they and the authors paint is one of a weak-willed, insensitive Chairman Biden unwilling to follow up serious charges against the nominee...
...City...
...She would not be the source for that statement...
...The leak didn't work, since Thomas is on the high court, but the leakers did get away with it...
...808) 325-7707...
...Dignified presentations since 1984...
...His story was the first to appear, in the Sunday, October 6 Newsday (whose first editions are printed Saturday evening, at about the same time its important stories are released over the wire services...
...Hill starts to talk...
...reach Hill, who is not forthcoming...
...And he isn't saying...
...Other Orientals too...
...Capitol Games essentially portrays Grant as a stooge, doing no more and no less than her boss's bidding) Biden now emerges fully as the villain of the piece: "To this day, it remains unclear as to whether Biden even tried to understand Hill's position on this sensitive issue...
...Biden rolls over as Republicans demand that the hearing reconvene quickly, before the Democrats and Hill have time to prepare adequately...
...Both Totenberg and Phelps had heard some of the substance of her tale prior to that and had contacted Hill repeatedly, but she said she wouldn't talk until the reporters had obtained a copy of the statement she had given to the committee...
...equally committed staffers of senators opposed to the nomination were similarly engaged...
...It is only fitting, therefore, that Capitol Games is a tribute to them, the radicals' revenge...
...415) 897-2742...
...It seems to promise a disinterested insiders' account of events from June 27, 1991, when Thurgood Marshall announced he was retiring from the high court, to October 26, when the Senate confirmed Clarence Thomas for the seat—journalism in its "objective" or "fair" or "balanced" sense...
...The chairman is praised for his "grasp of the intricacies of such esoterica as the concept of natural law...
...HE, Box 5500, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii 96745...
...In the meantime, it is safe to say that the leaks originated somewhere in the ranks of Thomas's extreme ideological enemies in the Senate—Brudney, Seidman, Con, and so on...
...Or, rather, nothing significant appears to be happening based on the account in Capitol Games...
...In this rendering, which rings true, we have a portrait of the Democratic staff and senators of the Judiciary Committee divided into warring camps over the Hill allegations...
...All in all, that would be a bad thing...
...Biden rolls over once again on the issue of who will testify first and last...
...Well, as even the Rehnquist court has held, we are going to have freedom of the press, no matter how bone-headed the press is...
...Overseas, sincere, attractive...
...Hill calls Seidman back on the eve of the start of the first round of hearings...
...He's No...
...the other copies were closely held by the committee, mainly in Harriet Grant's safe...
...Which means we are going to have leaks...
...In this, they are hardly unique...
...Phelps was meanwhile calling around frantically...
...But someone who is scrambling to describe this under deadline pressure and comes up with "her statement to the FBI" isn't making that distinction and probably is unaware of the finer points of what is what...
...the practice is not indefensible...
...As for the last sentence, we may take it as an oblique summa of the authors' position on the truth or falsity of Prof...
...It is the essential and paradoxical conceit of journalism that anonymous information conveyed by asource counts as news, but the fact that the source conveyed it doesn't count as news...
...This is polemic by insinuation, a practice that should be depressingly familiar to anyone who follows the Washington press corps...
...to their highly selective presentation of the evidence in this spectacular case...
...the groups and the staffers worked, close together...
...Whoever they are, they lied under oath to the special counsel...
...We hear instead from "someone who knew what was going on" and was in a position to describe "what Anita Hill had told the Judiciary Committee...
...Staffers for Senators Kennedy and Metzenbaum hear rumors of the allegations from Nan Aron's leftwing Alliance for Justice, an organization whose principal mission is to derail conservative judicial nominees...
...3. The further machinations of this crew need not detain us here...
...That even the Republicans, who are earlier described as willing to "stop at nothing" to see their man confirmed, may themselves not have believed Thomas...
...She does, talking to Biden's nominations counsel, Harriet Grant...
...That creates disgruntled staffer No...
...What does it tell...
...important than how they came to be made and how they came to be made public...
...Yet that is where we find ourselves, by default, in the partial account offered in Capitol Games...
...PERSONALS POLITICALLY INCORRECT GENTLEWOMAN, professional, slender, blonde, with warm heart and large cookbook collection, seeks intelligent, successful, discriminating gentleman with sense of humor, 40's-50's, to keep her company...
...It is hard to believe that that is the only question Phelps asked Con, since he was pressing all membersand staff of the Judiciary...
...Free details, photos...
...Send ad copy with payment and this form to: The American Spectator Classified Department, P.O...
...Metzenbaum's staff will pursue the matter, albeit cautiously (in the Capitol Games account...
...Phelps does not mention Con in this passage of the book at all...
...ASIAN LADIES DESIRE CORRESPONDENCE...
...Please Print) J r CLASSIFIED ORDER FORM Rates: $1.65 per word ($10 extra for TAS box number if desired...
...16805...
...Hill will think it over...
...Totenberg hasn't said, but there is reason to think the independent counsel got it wrong...
...He is disgruntled staffer No...
...at least some of those who were aware of Anita Hill's allegations thought they were potentially serious enough to derail the nomination...
...the opposite is true in cases .. . involving procedural and evidentiary rules...
...It is hard to imagine a case in which it is a bigger problem than in the case of the Anita Hill leak...
...Totenberg's broadcast was Sunday morning...
...PO Box 691, Kenilworth NJ 07033...
...Ad Classification...
...Asian Experience, Box 1214TR, Novato, CA 94948...
...IMPORTANT Allow six weeks for address change...
...But Kennedy, whose reputation has been beaten about the face and head thanks to the goings-on at the family compound in Palm Beach the previous Easter weekend, doesn't want to lead the charge on (continued on page 67) CAPITOL GAMES: CLARENCE THOMAS, ANITA HILL, AND THE STORY OF A SUPREME COURT NOMINATION Timothy M. Phelps and Helen Winternitz Hyperion /458 pages/$24.95 reviewed by TOD LINDBERG The American Spectator October 1992 65 CLASSIFIEDS MERCHANDISE WRITE-IN REAGAN or PAVE THE RAINFOREST...
...1. Please write your new address in the space provided...
...It was getting late," he writes, "and the deadline for the Sunday paper had passed when one of my telephone calls made it through to someone who knew what was going on, and was willing to talk...
...And he is damned for his effort to be fair to accuser and accused...
...But Seidman knows Kennedy doesn't want to head this effort, so she passes Hill on to Brudney...
...The American Spectator Circulation Department, P.O...
...So nothing happens on the committee...
...According to what Hill told the special counsel, Totenberg said she had the statement and read from it to Hill, and Hill agreed to the interview...
...Rather than giving the book a proper title based on its contents (for example, Betrayal: How the Senate Wronged a Woman Who Came Forward to Tell the Truth about a Supreme Court Nominee), the authors and their publisher give us a veneer of neutrality...
...t is interesting, however, that Phelps does not repeat in Capitol Games the claim from his article that his source had "seen her statement to the FBI...
...0 70 The American Spectator October 1992...
...The indictment continues as the harassment tribunal convenes October 11: the Republicans are playing to win, whereas the chairman is engaged in a fundamentally wrong-headed effort to be fair to the nominee—which has the effect of being fundamentally unfair to Anita Hill...
...Special Discount Offer: Pre-pay for 3 ads—get a 4th ad free...
...For a fuller account of this period, one must turn to the report of Peter Fleming, Jr., the independent counsel engaged by the Senate to investigate the Thomas leak...
...Box 549 Arlington, VA 22216-0549 (Please attach address label here...
...This is not praise...
...r MOVING...
...But reporters who deny that it is a problem are mistaken...
...Laster and Seidman (exceeding her instructions...
...Just be sure to allow six weeks for your change to take effect...
...As far as Rehnquist was concerned, individual freedoms were not nearly so worthy of the court's protection as property rights...
...2. Attach the mailing label from your most recent issue...
...Joseph Biden's committee convened as a sexual harassment tribunal...
...It is a detail, the final detail, that the authors seem to regard as "telling...
...t is probably too much to expect a fair hearing for 'Conservative views of jurisprudence from a book as tendentious as Capitol Games...
...Seidman makes more headway...
...The independent counsel believes Totenberg had a copy of the statement before that, but she was uncertain about its authenticity, and that Phelps didn't have it...
...She is now working for Bill Clinton...
...As for the one that catapulted Phelps to such fame as he enjoys, he is defensive about the term: "a label that sounded erroneously as if someone had handed me the full, ready-to-print Hill story...
...Hill's charge that Thomas sexually harassed her: "The Republicans had no appetite," the authors archly aver, "for investigating the alleged conspiracy that they say had been concocted to sabotage their nominee to the Supreme Court...
...Specify size...
...The authors' catty concluding sentence notwithstanding, we have all known a few things at least since last October: interest groups opposed to Thomas's nomination on ideological grounds were working night and day looking for "dirt" on him...
...Their one-two punch came just after the Senate Judiciary Committee had split evenly on the nomination, and the Senate as a whole was scheduled to vote October 8. Eventually that vote would be postponed, and the nation would be treated to an unforgettable, riveting weekend of television when Sen...
...The truth or falsity of Hill's allegations is, of course, the central issue...
...816) 942-1668...
...McNally Enterprises, A.S...
...The special counsel's account describes Phelps reaching Corr between six and seven o'clock, purportedly looking for a phone number for Senator Metzenbaum...
...Quality American T-Shirts, $14.95 each or $27 for both, + $1.50 s.+h...
...JAPANESE WOMEN seek friends, marriage...
...He promised his sources anonymity, and he is keeping his promise...
...The principals are James Brudney, William Corr, Christopher J. Harvie, and Gail Laster...
...they further thought the reception accorded the allegations by the Judiciary Committee was inadequate...
...But both Phelps and Totenberg placed calls to Ricki Seidman Saturday morning...
...Pre-payment required for all ads...
...At the same time, the Phelps and Winternitz account is useful for the snippets it does provide...
...60 per column inch for classified display ads...
...At 2:26 that afternoon, Hill returned a Totenberg call...
...The title is noncommittal, nonjudgmental...
...Don't forget TAS Address Changes Made Easy...
...In any case, Hill wants to remain anonymous, and Biden will not circulate charges under those circumstances...
...Suffice it to say that Capitol Games is, at its most interesting, their book...
...But it is preposterous to maintain, explicitly or implicitly, that the full history of the surfacing of these charges can tell us nothing about their truth or falsity...
...SUNSHINE INTERNATIONAL Dept...
...We will indeed have an opportunity to review the special counsel's raw material—when the records are unsealed in 2042...
...2. We also learn that (continued on page 70) The American Spectator October 1992 67 CAPITOL GAMES (continued from page 67) Corr is the one who first heard from the Alliance for Justice...
...1, Rich Seidman, who was formerly legal director for People for the American Way...
...S o Capitol Games is ultimately based on the premise that the charges Anita Hill made are more...
...Committee he could reach for details of the allegations...
...Box 10224, State College, Pa...
...The authors say that Grant's "reputation among the liberal groups opposing Thomas was that she was too straitlaced...
...He worked hard for his leak, dammit...
...The special counsel goes too far in asserting that the description of the source (which is in any case absent from Phelps's account in the book) is enough to exonerate COLT...
...ATTRACTIVE ORIENTAL LADIES seeking correspondence, marriage...
...Corr had seen neither the FBI report nor Hill's statement to the committee...
...Metzenbaum's staff' (this is characteristic of the book's willful evasiveness) has told "Biden's staff' about the matter, and the latter has told the former that if Hill wants to proceed, she will have to contact the committee...
...As it happens, Capitol Games was more or less foreordained to be a fundamentally disingenuous book...
...NamePlease Print Address...
...Box 549 Arlington, Virginia 22216-0549 L 1 CAPITOL GAMES (continued from page 65) the Hill allegations...
...Calder Square, P.O...
...They described Hill's reluctance to talk and her reasons...
...Phelps, in short, knows exactly who let that runaway train out of the station...
...From that report, we learn that Brudney is in nearly daily telephone contact with Hill in this period...
...As a matter of fact, Biden likes natural law so long as it is understood to be evolving—in other words, so long as it is not natural law...
...Phelps's account confirms that he didn't...
...Enclosed is: $ for insertions...
...There is a certain through-the-looking-glass quality to Capitol Games...
...Seidman then spoke to Brudney, who had a copy of Hill's statement in his briefcase (he had obtained it independently September 25...
...and they leaked information about the charges to the press with the expectation that a public airing, even at the eleventh hour, would derail the nomination...
...That's all there is to it...
...11 Renew my subscription for one year (twelve issues?35) OPayment enclosed Bill me later Name: Address: City: State: Zip: Late of change...
...The intrepid Phelps and Winternitz describe this as a "startling statement about his philosophy...
...Without this conceit, journalism as we know it would cease to exist...
...Alas, it is too much to expect even a fair description of what a more conservative Supreme Court has sometimes held...
...She may have only had the statement read to her before that Saturday...
...The committee will not contact her...
...The special counsel dismisses the possibility that Corr was Phelps's source on the grounds that Phelps's article described the source as someone "who has seen her statement to the FBI...
...But after speaking with his "someone who knew what was going on," the next conversation he reports is one with Hill, in which she confirmed his source's statement that Thomas "made suggestions to her about what kind of sex he liked to engage in, asking her in detail about different forms of sex...
...Free brochure: PACIFIC CENTURY, 110 Pacific #208-JX, San Francisco, CA 94111...
...That sounds more accurate than the attribution in the initial story, which is a muddle: there was Hill's statement to the committee and there was the FBI report, of which Hill's statement was a part...
...Thus Chief Justice Rehnquist is quoted from a ruling that overturned a previous court ruling: "Considerations in favor of stare decisis [sticking with past rulings] are at their acme in cases involving property and contract rights, where reliance issues are involved...
...State: Zip...
...In fact, the last two questions count for nothing to Phelps and Winternitz (though they intermittently pretend to address them...
...Perhaps the full text of the interviews and depositions his office conducted, read against other independently derived evidence, will yield a definitive circumstantial case...
...Their unhappiness and even disgust is manifest as the committee takes no immediate action following Hill's conversation with Grant...
...Something critical happened on Saturday, October 5, that convinced a reluctant Anita Hill to go on the record with two reporters about her allegations...
...Surely not to lend unwarranted authority Tod Lindberg is the editorial page editor of the Washington Times...
...3. Return this form to us at the address listed below...
Vol. 25 • October 1992 • No. 10
