New Justice’s Allies, Foes Blast Each Other : Reaction: Liberal groups say Thomas backers used intimidation and the race issue. Conservatives accuse his opponents of dirty tactics.

For Phyllis Schlafly, it was the best of times; for Kate Michelman, the worst.

“The feminists and other liberals in this country have just gotten the backlash of public and Senate opinion that they deserve,” Schlafly, president of a conservative women’s group called Eagle Forum, declared Tuesday in hailing Senate confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas.

But for Michelman, executive director of the National Abortion Rights Action League, the confirmation of a man suspected of opposing abortion was “a dark, dark day for women” and began “the final countdown to elimination of constitutional protection for our right to choose.”

As the Senate concluded one of the fiercest and nastiest confirmation fights in history, combatants on both sides were still getting in their last shots. But many also were exhibiting signs of exhaustion.

Sen. John C. Danforth (R-Mo.), Thomas’ vigorous Senate sponsor and longtime friend, said he had felt “joy” when Thomas was nominated by President Bush on July 1 but now felt only “relief” as the nominee survived the late-breaking tumult of sexual harassment charges against him.

Thomas “has endured, over the last 10 days, the agonies of hell,” Danforth said, suggesting that he had also suffered that fate.

Conservative and anti-abortion groups expressed jubilation and vindication over the Senate’s decision in the wake of public disclosure of the harassment charges of law professor Anita Faye Hill, which led to sensational public hearings and jeopardized Thomas’ nomination.

“Look at what the left has leveled at Clarence Thomas,” said Thomas L. Jipping of Coalitions for America, an amalgam of conservative political groups. “Their tactics were of the caliber of world championship wrestling, the Persian Gulf War and Hurricane Hugo combined. They have put the Senate in a complete moral free fall, destroyed lives, cashed in all their political chips, twisted and broken arms.

“They have done everything they could,” he said, “and we won.”

The National Right to Life Committee applauded the elevation of Thomas to the high court because it was “hopeful that Justice Thomas will become a member of a new court majority that will allow legal protection for unborn women,” said Douglas Johnson, the group’s legislative director.

Edward Hayes Jr., head of the Council of 100, a group of black Republican professionals, also praised the Senate action.

“People will very quickly put the sexual harassment matter to rest, and Clarence Thomas will not have a cloud over him on the court,” Hayes said.

Gary L. Bauer, chairman of the Citizens Committee to Confirm Clarence Thomas, called the Senate vote “a tribute to the common sense and decency of the American people, who watched the unfolding of an unprecedented eleventh-hour campaign of character assassination and, like Clarence Thomas, said: ‘Enough is enough.’ ”

Civil rights and women’s groups that opposed Thomas accused his supporters of winning with racial tactics and said his confirmation bodes ill for abortion rights and other liberal causes.

Ralph G. Neas, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, a coalition of labor, church and civil rights groups, accused the Bush Administration of using “the politics of intimidation” against witnesses who pressed the sexual harassment charges against Thomas.

Citing the claim of Thomas and his Republican backers that he was being subjected to a “lynching,” Neas said that “whenever the Administration is in trouble, they play the race card.”

Neas said it was “a valiant effort” that mustered 48 votes against Thomas, the highest number ever cast against a successful nominee.

Rep. Craig Washington (D-Tex.), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, which strongly opposed Thomas, said his confirmation buttresses the feeling that victims of sexual harassment “can’t come forward because they’re fighting against the odds and they’re not going to win.”

Washington accused Thomas of deflecting attention from the harassment charges by raising the race issue and calling the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearings “a high-tech lynching.”

“It is not black women who have lynched black men,” Washington said. “It is white racism that has been tolerated for so long by many of Judge Thomas’ supporters.”

Rep. Gary Franks (R-Conn.), the only GOP member of the Black Caucus and its only Thomas supporter, hailed the Senate vote.

“His (Thomas’) path from Pin Point, Ga., to the highest court of the land was blocked by segregation, poverty and other countless obstacles, including the recent allegations against his character,” Franks said. “However, fairness won out, and our country will be stronger for it.”

Judith Lichtman, president of the Women’s Legal Defense Fund, said she was “appalled” by the Senate action in the face of Thomas’ record and Prof. Hill’s “extraordinarily credible” testimony.

“Senators who had the opportunity to fully probe Judge Thomas’ motive and record were too cowed by the White House’s sinister and partisan use of racial politics to do justice by Anita Hill,” she said.