Thomas Decries Ad Questioning Opponents’ Honesty

Conservative groups determined to get a jump on liberal opponents are financing ad campaigns to support the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.

But Thomas has criticized one of the ads, which assails the ethics of three liberal senators.

“I deplore such viciousness and condemn such advertising in the strongest terms,” Thomas said Tuesday in a statement.

The ads are highly critical of Democratic Sens. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, Alan Cranston of California and Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware.

“This is a shot across the bow,” L. Brent Bozell III said in describing the television commercial aired Tuesday by some Washington area cable operators and on a Fox Network station here. It was sponsored by Bozell’s Conservative Victory Committee and another group, Citizens United.

Senate confirmation hearings for Thomas, a black federal judge nominated by President Bush to replace retiring Justice Thurgood Marshall, are to begin next week.

The 60-second ad asks how many of the “liberal Democrats” expected to oppose Thomas “could themselves pass ethical scrutiny.”

The ad says Kennedy was suspended from Harvard for cheating and that he left the scene of a 1969 car accident at Chappaquiddick, Mass., in which Mary Jo Kopechne died. It shows a headline that reads “Ted’s Sex Romp” as the narrator adds, “And this year, Palm Beach,” referring to rape charges filed against Kennedy’s nephew, William Kennedy Smith.

The ad says Biden was “found guilty of plagiarism during his presidential campaign.”

About Cranston, it says, “Implicated in the ‘Keating Five’ S&L; scandal.”

Thomas said in his statement that he had been treated fairly by the Senate and by Biden, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“It is my hope that private groups with an interest in my nomination would conduct themselves with a proper respect for the important role and responsibilities of the Senate, with respect for senators, and in a way that brings credit on this nation’s processes of constitutional government,” Thomas said.

Bozell said the two groups are spending $100,000 to air the ad in the nation’s capital for two weeks.