COLUMN RIGHT / TOM BETHELL : Don’t Take the Fifth, Go on the Attack : The Thomas hearings are a study in Republican diffidence.

The fall season opened with the confirmation hearings on Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. One looks for signs of something new in the political arena. In Russia there is change, but in Washington the two parties remain depressingly true to form.

Supreme Court confirmation proceedings were first televised less than a decade ago, when Sandra Day O’Connor was appointed by President Reagan. Since then, we have seen nominee Robert Bork defeated, and last year, the stealthy advance of David Souter to the court.

Today, liberals are uncomfortably aware that Clarence Thomas is trying to use the same strategy. But the stealth strategy makes many conservatives equally uncomfortable.

Despite their lengthy tenure in the White House, Republicans remain uncertain of how to cope with the aggressive tactics of Democrats in Washington. In responding defensively, they give the impression of lacking moral legitimacy, of hoping to find acceptance merely as the lesser of two evils.

A preliminary to the Thomas hearings provided an object lesson in Republican diffidence. A television ad produced by an independent conservative group questioned the fitness of three Democratic senators to pass judgment on Thomas in view of their ethical lapses. Although no one doubted the accuracy of the charges, which were moderate compared to the assaults that Bork endured, President Bush himself criticized the ad. The message was clear: Conservatives may be attacked, but they should prudently remain on the defensive if they wish to remain in the Washington “mainstream.”

The nervous White House response told us that “handlers” were again planning a low-profile, stealth strategy this time for Thomas. Sure enough, once the hearings began, the nominee began a series of evasive maneuvers that have clearly irritated the Democrats.

It is possible, of course, that a strategy of repudiation and evasion will work for Thomas, as it did with Souter. But there is something highly unsatisfactory about it. It’s no good arguing that earlier nominees refused to answer all relevant questions and that Thomas should be accorded a similar privilege. The fact is, earlier hearings weren’t orchestrated for television in the way they are today. With the cameras trained mercilessly on the nominee, candor is indispensable. Yet when confronted in an accusatory way with earlier published statements, (many of which sounded quite interesting and long overdue for public debate), Thomas reacted defensively with dull, confusing statements. At times, far from looking like a candidate for the highest court, he seemed to be on the verge of taking the Fifth Amendment. The strategy could backfire.

Republican strategists, accustomed to backstage dealing, seem instinctively to fear the publicity of nationwide television. They therefore fail to realize that they could use it to win on many issues--if only they were willing to take on the Democrats in open combat.

Take the issue of abortion, for example. This is a moral confrontation between those who believe it that is a civil right and those who believe it that is a moral wrong. Political candidates who believe the latter but dare not say so openly (for fear that it might be unpopular) undermine their own case by their timidity.

If Thomas is opposed to abortion, as one suspects he is, surely he weakens his own position by fearing to say so.

At the beginning of the confirmation hearings, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) raised the interesting question of economic rights, waving a copy of Richard Epstein’s book, “Takings,” before the camera, seeming to defy Thomas to come right out and defend property rights. Thomas should have taken him up on the offer. If he had he done so, he might have found American taxpayers united behind him. Instead, he seemed intimidated, above all eager to reassure Biden that here for sure there would be no upsetting of legislative prerogatives by meddling judges.

It was left to Sen. Hank Brown (R-Colo.) to point out that personal and property rights cannot easily be separated, and that without the latter, the former mean little.

The Thomas hearings have so far been dispiriting for conservatives because we see, as so often in the past, Republicans in a winning position yet crouching defensively out of sheer habit. In Clarence Thomas, they have a nominee who is attractive and intelligent but who seems to be trying to ingratiate himself by obscuring or repudiating all that he has stood for. Maybe the strategy will work one more time. But if it doesn’t, maybe Republicans should think about playing offense. It would be something new in Washington.