The Men, Not the Laws, Were at Fault in This Case : Thomas: His anger should be aimed at the caliber of senators and the times, not the process.

Judge Clarence Thomas might be forgiven his wrathful tirade against the confirmation process that caused him such personal anguish, but he is flat-out wrong when he points the accusing finger at the constitutionally ordained system of advice and consent.

Thomas might better direct his anger at presidents, such as George Bush, who use nominations to the high court to pay off their electoral supporters and mollify extremists in their own party. He should reserve some salvos for the current members of the Senate where guileful politicians abound but statesmanship is almost nowhere in evidence. And he should take account of the fact that we are living in an era of presidential dominance comparable to that period 20 years ago that produced the phrase “the imperial presidency.”

But since it is the Senate and its role in the process that has received the bulk of public scorn, it is important to ask why the institution acts the way it does.

The Judiciary Committee, which conducted the original confirmation hearings on Thomas as well as the sublimated Punch-and-Judy show of the last several days is a good microcosm of the Senate. Its members by their conduct in the hearings remind us just how maddeningly uneven the quality of senators can be.

The chairman, Delaware Democrat Joseph R. Biden, on several occasions was on the verge of losing control of the panel. A man so lacking in gravity as to require lead ballast in his shoes, he is also capable of great eloquence and even genuine moral indignation.

The ranking minority member, South Carolina Republican Strom Thurmond, was a candidate for the presidency on the Dixiecrat ticket when Biden was in kindergarten. Known in his prime as what used to be called “a ladies’ man,” this deeply conservative old segregationist, who reinvented himself for the civil-rights era, took a back seat to his younger and more aggressive colleagues for the Thomas side.

Some performances were embarrassing. Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.), tainted by the Charles Keating scandal, was garrulous and asked rambling, pointless questions. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.), much loved by reporters for his pungent one-liners, revealed an ugly underside with his overheated language and McCarthy-style innuendoes against Anita F. Hill. The liberal curmudgeon was Ohio Democrat Howard Metzenbaum, who seemed much more interested in proving that he was not the source of the leak of the FBI report than of trying to nail down the truth.

And so it went for four days: Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) in his gravest inquisitorial style blatantly charged Hill with perjury; Howell Heflin (D-Ala.) trying to steal from Gregory Peck the right to the Atticus Finch role in “To Kill a Mockingbird”; Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), all wounded innocence and high dudgeon, and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), the Senate’s premier Lothario, looking uneasy in the role of moral censor.

But there were other vignettes that showed the Senate’s nobler side: the diligence and scrupulous fairness of Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy, Kennedy’s efforts to take the heat off the beleaguered Biden and the steadfastness of Thomas’ principal Senate supporter, Missouri Republican John C. Danforth.

And if we buy into Thomas’ condemnation of the process, what do we put in its place? A panel of attorneys who would rubber-stamp all nominations? A committee of academics who would probably reject them all? A system of electing judges directly that would give us jurists chosen by the standard of the 30-second TV spot? Does anyone, excluding Thomas, think that secret hearings would have been better?

It is also important, when condemning the hearings, to ask, “compared to what?” By the standard of Joseph McCarthy’s rampages or the kangaroo court of the House Un-American Activities Committee, this was a model of procedural fairness.

But our senses were not deceiving us; there was something wrong. We saw it in the windy posturing of the senators for the benefit of voters back home; in the intellectually slack lines of questioning from some members and the pharisaical self-righteousness of others. But this is a problem of men and not of laws.

If there is a process that needs examining, it is an electoral process that gives us legislators of uncertain quality. It is a process given us by citizens who are both cynical and gullible, journalists who prize sensation over substance and candidates who are slick and disingenuous. Thomas might not think so now, but given the times and the cast of characters, it might even have been worse.