Clarence Thomas as Bill Clinton?

[Lynne Henderson]

An article in *The Nation* published shortly after the hearings, entitled
*Clarence Thomas at Yale*, discusses his being in Tom Emerson's cvil
liberties class, and Emerson's notes reflecting *Roe v Wade*  (It also give
us Hilary Clinton's grade, Bill Clinton's grade and Thomas's grade in the
class, presumably at different times) My copy is somewhere in my office,
and I will search for it later today.  I also remember questioning of Hill
by  by Hank Brown during the hearings, and he asked her  if she and Thomas
had disagreed over things, in particular *Roe v. Wade*, she paused, and
Biden cut off the questioning, sayign they had already disposed of that
matter.  I was yelling "He's opened the door, let her answer. . ."
Cheers
Lynne

At 03:22 PM 10/08/2001 -0500, you wrote:
>  Book: Thomas Discussed Roe v. Wade
>
>              By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
>
>               Filed at 2:52 p.m. ET
>
>WASHINGTON (AP)-- A biography of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas
>contends he discussed the Roe v. Wade abortion decision with at least three
>people before his confirmation hearings, even though he
>told a Senate committee he had not.
>
>        Under Senate questioning in 1991, Thomas said he had never debated
>the contents or outcome of the 1973 Supreme Court decision that found a
>constitutional right to abortion, and had no personal opinion
>about it.
>
>        ``Clarence Thomas, a Biography'' by Andrew Peyton Thomas, includes
>interviews with three people who
>say Clarence Thomas discussed the case in varying detail in conversations
>in the mid-1970s through the 1980s.
>
>         The first, a lawyer named Michael Boicourt, worked with Thomas in
>the Missouri attorney general's office. He said Thomas was against
>abortion, but Boicourt could not recall more specific views the future
>justice might have expressed on what was then a recent decision.
>
>          While working for the Reagan administration in Washington in the
>1980s, according to the book, Thomas talked about the case with
>then-Assistant Attorney General William Bradford Reynolds, and with a
>friend, Armstrong Williams, who went on to become a conservative
>commentator and radio host.
>
>          ``I know we discussed it. I think that he thought little of Roe v.
>Wade,'' Reynolds is quoted as saying. While Thomas did not state his views
>as forcefully as Reynolds, who said he found the decision
>``constitutionally bankrupt,'' it was clear from their conversations that
>Thomas took a dim view of the decision on constitutional grounds, Reynolds
>said.
>
>         Williams said both Thomas and he opposed the decision.
>
>         ``He would also talk about where the Supreme Court ... erred on
>some of these decisions,'' Williams said in the book. ``He thought they
>weren't interpreting the Constitution but trying to make law.''
>
>          A spokeswoman for the high court said Justice Thomas would have no
>comment on the unauthorized biography.
>
>          The book, published this month by Encounter Books, is mostly a
>sympathetic portrait that grew out of an article in the conservative Weekly
>Standard.
>
>          Author Andrew Peyton Thomas, who is not related to Clarence
>Thomas, referred to the nominee's confirmation answers under oath about Roe
>v. Wade as possibly ``Clintonesque.''