Bill and Hillary Clinton attended Yale, but they must have skipped class for the lesson in honesty related in Sir Walter Scott’s epic poem, “Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field,” which contains the often-quoted line: “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!”
The Clintons seem to have struggled with the truth for many years in politics. Remember Hillary’s false claim in a 2018 speech that she had landed in Bosnia “under sniper fire”? Or her claims that Monica Lewinsky’s allegations of an affair with her husband were part of a “vast right-wing conspiracy”? Or her proclamation that turning Libya into a terrorist-filled wilderness constituted “smart power”?
A leopard cannot change its spots. So, it is unsurprising to encounter a new Hillary Clinton fib about which I have personal knowledge. It may seem minor, but it speaks volumes about her unfitness for leadership.
At an early age, I was privileged to serve as an assistant to Clarence Thomas, then the chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Thomas, of course, was later elevated by President George H.W. Bush to the U.S. Supreme Court after serving a short stint on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
As his confidential assistant, I was privy to many details of his private life. We forged a bond that has endured to this day. I am hesitant to discuss private matters, but an exception in this case is justified to keep the record straight and to defend Thomas, who is enduring harsh criticism by liberals for his concurring opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Hillary Clinton recently appeared on “CBS Morning News.” To fortify the credibility of her polemic, she alleged having personal encounters with Thomas during their attendance at Yale Law School. As any attendee of a prestigious law school knows, the students typically are separated from one another by assignments to distinct sections based on year of admission or expected graduation. It is not unusual for two students attending the same law school during the same or overlapping years to never have spoken to one another. Most students form small study groups and seldom venture into sustained interactions with outsiders.
On CBS, Clinton claimed to have discerned the inner workings of Thomas’s mind during their joint attendance at Yale Law, although she was not in his graduating class, she and Bill Clinton having graduated in 1973 and Thomas, in 1974. She declared that she “knew” Thomas and perceived him to be a “person of grievance.”
Think of that coming from Hillary Clinton. “A person of grievance”? Is she projecting her own vengeful personality? According to the book “HRC,” written by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, the Clintons compiled an “enemies list” of those who declined to support Hillary in the 2008 presidential primaries. The book claims the couple created “a special circle of Clinton hell … for people who had endorsed [Barack] Obama.”
In any event, Clarence Thomas was one of 12 Black students in his Yale Law School class. He grew up on a farm during the depths of Jim Crow. Is it easy to forget childhood humiliations and denigrations? Did Frederick Douglass forget his enslavement?
But let’s return to Hillary Clinton’s claim that she knew Thomas while at Yale. It appears to be false, according to what I know of Thomas. My conversations with Thomas have led me to conclude the two never spoke with one another. Perhaps, instead, her “person of grievance” speculation is based on unreliable hearsay or, maybe, eavesdropping.
Hillary Clinton is a worn-out politician who craves relevance. She has nothing of substance to say, so she trafficks in gossip and a politics of revenge.
Her comments about her Yale connection with Thomas was strategically timed to coincide with Supreme Court decisions she and other Democrats oppose. Instead of addressing the merits of the decisions, Clinton resorted to ad hominin attacks to excite her crowd of supporters blaming every evil in the world on conservatives who they believe are responsible for such things as gender discrimination — especially her 2016 presidential defeat by Donald Trump. Who is the true person of grievance, Hillary Clinton or Justice Thomas? You decide.
Hillary Clinton someday will pass from the scene, but her daughter seems prepared someday to pick up her grievance torch with fresh energy. All of this goes to verify the wisdom of Henry Adams: “Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.” Have you ever wondered why nothing dries faster than a politician’s tears?
Armstrong Williams (@ARightSide) is the owner and manager of Howard Stirk Holdings I & II Broadcast Television Stations and the 2016 Multicultural Media Broadcast Owner of the Year. He is the author of “Reawakening Virtues.”