What Was Ginni Thomas Thinking? Top 5 Possibilities

By now we’ve all heard the news about Ginni and Anita.

Nearly 20 years after the Hill/Thomas sexual harassment scandal, Thomas’s wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, made an utterly bizarre early-morning call to Anita Hill on Saturday, Oct. 9, suggesting Hill apologize and provide “some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband.”

Ginni said she meant no offense, but, as Hill replied, “she can’t ask for an apology without suggesting that I did something wrong, and that is offensive.”

So I gotta ask you Ginni, why’d ya do it? Here are some of the suggestions that have been made:

1. What makes most sense to us is that she was diverting attention away from growing public scrutiny of her involvement with the Tea Party-aligned group Liberty Central. The day before Ginni’s call to Anita, The New York Times ran an explosive piece questioning Ginni’s ties to an organization that seeks to end the leftist “tyranny” of the Obama administration, and whose (very generous) funders remain unnamed. With a husband on the Supreme Court, and a conflict-of-interest law that advises members of the judiciary to avoid even the appearance of conflict, a quick diversion tactic may have been a clever move.

2. Ginni’s infamous “naivete.” Maybe she truly believes her husband was a victim. Maybe she believes he never asked Anita out, tastefully discussed the film “Long Dong Silver” or inquired as to whether or not Anita’s pubic hair was on his Coke can, and she wants Anita to set the record straight, once and for all, gosh darn it.

3. She really thinks Anita owes her an apology. Just like Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who tweeted on Wednesday night, “People have got to understand that Justice Thomas and his wife are good honest people who deserve an apology!”

4. Matt K. Lewis of Political Daily proposes it was an Ambien stupor, or she was taping a reality show. (Good combo?)

5. Gawker suggests it was drunk dialing. It was 7:31 am on a Saturday, but maybe the Thomas’ really whooped it up the night before. A big ‘ole Liberty Central party, perhaps?

So what do you think?

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Or propose your alternative theory in the comments!

Photo from Flickr user Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com under Creative Commons 2.0.

About

Stephanie hails from Toronto, Canada. She is a Ms. writer, a master of journalism candidate and a hip hop dancer/instructor/choreographer. She got her start in feminist journalism at the age of 16 when she was a member of the first editorial collective at Shameless magazine—and she has never looked back.