High Noon in Television’s High Court

T hank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to say what a pleasure it is for me to be here among my colleagues whom I loathe as I smile insincerely at an onerous roach like you and begin making a political speech and celebrating myself while pretending to interrogate the witness whose plight I will purport to understand even though I have no sympathy for this disgusting lump who reminds me of both my dear old uncle and auntie whom I despise but will publicly say I adore as I speak in front of the TV camera whose presence of course I don’t notice as I try to impress millions of viewers with the spontaneous fairness and earnestness I have been rehearsing for weeks in front of a mirror that reflects the image of someone I worship in this wonderful land whose grand traditions I am dishonoring with my cynical opportunism and pretense of senatorial patriotism. Oh . . . I see my time is up.

Whew!

The Judge Clarence Thomas-Anita Faye Hill duel has been the most raw, tense and captivating political telecast since the early 1970s, shining hot TV lights on both sexual harassment and political harassment.

Let’s face it, their performances were reprehensibly self-serving. They lied. They distorted. They misrepresented. They evaded. They sidestepped. They postured. So much so, in fact, that it was impossible to know who was telling the truth.

And those were just the senators.

Whether the smarmy Biden or the babbling Thurmond or the curiously shrinking Kennedy or the McCarthy-aping Simpson or the histrionic Hatch, it was as ugly and infuriating as it was frequently enthralling. In a sense, the public is rather fortunate. As the grating Hatch delivered another of his haranguing pro-Thomas lectures under the guise of questioning him, you were thankful that you hear these guys only occasionally. They have to listen to each other every day.

After being relatively indifferent to sex harassment as news, and Thomas’ earlier appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee when it came to live coverage, the Big Three networks have joined CNN, PBS and C-SPAN in swarming all over this spectacle that was triggered when Oklahoma law professor Hill publicly charged that Thomas had sexually harassed her as her boss at the Education Department and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in the early 1980s.

Kids’ cartoons supplanted by a Saturday saturation of news anchors? “There may be extremely graphic testimony you may not want your children to watch,” Dan Rather warned on CBS. “Back and forth they go, alternating the questions,” said ABC’s Peter Jennings, explaining the Judiciary Committee’s political makeup to younger viewers.

Such knowledge was not necessary to be swept up in the emotional fervor of Friday’s opening. Surrounded by his entourage and cheered on by government workers and other supporters chanting “Thomas! Thomas! Thomas!,” the embattled Supreme Court nominee preceded his accuser into the Senate Caucus Room--and what Sen Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), the committee’s chairman, called the “blinding light” of publicity--like someone about to fight for the heavyweight championship.

The atmosphere throughout the day and parts of Saturday and Sunday was not only electric, but also pathetic, as the shrill din of politics resonated across the airwaves.

Not since the Watergate hearings and Richard Nixon’s subsequent resignation as President has TV so acutely focused the nation’s attention on such an epic, volatile, high-stakes, nation-polarizing political drama and the issue underlying it. Because of its huge swells of spontaneous emotion--and because it turns entirely on the images of just two people--this event has mesmerized the public via TV in a way not even approached by the ambiguous, tightly choreographed Iran-Contra hearings.

You watched the faces of Hill and Thomas for clues to their believability. She blanched. He twitched. She choked up. He cried. What did it all mean?

In fact, this extraordinary addendum to Thomas’ confirmation hearings appears almost to have taken on a life of its own through TV, as if repeated monitoring of the rising and falling credibility/momentum barometer were an end in itself.

CBS Correspondent Rita Braver to Dan Rather during a Saturday morning break: “It is considered at this part of the day that the momentum is with his side.”

Some of the pictures have conveyed self-contained dramas in themselves:

* The anger of Hill’s friend, Ellen Wells, while denying Sunday being part of a plot to sabotage Thomas. Then her emotion in telling Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) that, based on her own experience, sexual harassment was the sort of act that became “indelibly burned in your brain,” thus making note taking unnecessary.

* The contempt on Thomas’ face as Sen. Howell Heflin (D-Ala.) told him, “Some of us want to be fair.”

* The tears in the eyes of Thomas’ wife, Virginia, as Hatch asked him to respond to Hill’s charges.

* The faces of some of the Judiciary Committee’s Democratic members as Hatch led Thomas through a friendly line of questions designed to let Thomas shine. The Democrats reminded you of a pool player looking on helplessly as his opponent runs the table.

* Senators on both sides quoting newspapers as automatic truth when it was in their best interests, then attacking newspapers when it wasn’t.

* Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) decrying political cynicism the day after he had claimed on TV to be getting calls and letters about Hill--particularly from Oklahoma--saying: “Watch out for this woman!” He gave no details, and refused to do so Sunday in an interview with NBC News.

* Biden drawing a laugh when needing to borrow the spectacles of Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) to read a newspaper clipping on which he was basing a critical question to Thomas. Nowhere was there a more striking example of the variance in the skill levels of the Democratic and Republican interrogators. The former have been frequently inept, the latter frequently brilliant.

* The monolithic maleness and whiteness of the committee members, creating a vivid, powerful metaphor for the nation’s historic gender and color imbalance in not only the highest reaches of government but in all corridors of power. It was history repeating itself: men judging a woman, whites judging blacks.

TV strategies--creating visual symbols and seeking the maximum possible audience based on when Thomas or Hill would be in front of the camera--have been especially significant in a conflict hinging on image.

But so is how the media choses to characterize the story to Americans who might not have seen it unfold live on TV. On Friday, for example, KNBC’s Steve Handelsman reported from Washington that Thomas had been accused of sexually harassing Hill “behind his closed doors.” Implicit was the image of Thomas closing the doors to his office and doing something furtive. However, Hill testified that she could not recall if the acts she alleges occurred behind closed doors.

Just as critical was the way others chose to interpret the proceedings when reviewing them outside the hearing room. On Friday and Saturday, for example, Hatch and Simpson repeatedly gave TV interviews in which they were unchallenged while flat-out misrepresenting Hill’s testimony. Simpson at one point claimed that Hill had testified that Thomas hadn’t sexually harassed her, but only that his alleged actions were “just an annoyance.” In reality, Hill said she believed she had been sexually harassed, but wasn’t sure whether Thomas’ alleged actions met the legal definition.

Hatch did get his comeuppance once after telling Peter Jennings that Hill was “caught up in a very clever embroilment,” but adding, “I don’t want to call her a liar.” Jennings: “You already have, senator.”

It was Rather, though, who inadvertently summarized the confusion and ambiguity veiling this event that has been captured so remarkably on TV by saying at one point: “Who and where happens next?” Exactly.