"President Bush criticized Congress today. He blasted the Senate for making public the Anita Hill sexual harassment charges against Clarence Thomas. Mr. Bush called for a special prosecutor to investigate reporters and others involved with leaks. The Senate, reeling, agreed,"
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, October 24, 1991.

Dan Rather spoke of the leak two weeks earlier during live hearing coverage:
"Would you agree, or would you not agree, that one person's leak is another person's public service?"
--Dan Rather to scholar Bruce Fein in a CBS Special Report, October 12, 1991.

After the Senate decided to investigate the leak, Rather denounced its decision:
"A process has been set in motion that leads from one first amendment violation to another, like falling dominos."
--Dan Rather speaking at the National Press Club, March 16, 1992.

Bill Clinton was about to announce his nomination of appeals court judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the Supreme Court:
"Judge Ginsburg is considered a moderate and a supporter of a woman's right to an abortion. Now there'll be some argument about whether she's considered a moderate or not. That's one of the fulcrum points at which the debate about her nomination no doubt will turn, but she considers herself a moderate, and supporters of her say that she is a moderate."
--Dan Rather during a CBS News Special Report, June 14, 1993.

Senators Orrin Hatch and Joe Biden debated the confirmation of Clarence Thomas:
"Looking at this hearing as it got under way this morning, one had the impression that in terms, strictly in the narrow sense between Senators, that Orrin Hatch [Republican] sort of played the part of Mike Tyson. Before Senator Biden [Democrat] could sort of get off his stool, Hatch was at him, all over him, and decked him."
--Dan Rather in a CBS Special Report during the hearings, October 11, 1991.

"President Bush's attack strategy includes a pressure campaign on undecided senators, but Mr. Bush refused to say today whether he supports the attacks on Anita Hill's credibility and mental state. More about that from our White House correspondent, Susan Spencer. Susan, good evening....
"Susan, what about the reports that the president himself organized and ordered the go-after-her strategy?"
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, October 14, 1991.

George W. Bush nominated several people to fill federal appeals courts vacancies. Dan Rather reported the event by only relaying what Senate Democrats thought of the nominees:
"President Bush today named his first 11 choices to be federal appeals court judges. Most of the nominees are little known outside judicial circles. Senate Democrats say they'll oppose confirming anyone selected primarily for ideology instead of qualifications. They already object to Terrence Boyle, a former aide to Republican Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, May 9, 2001.

"Well, as you say that, Susan, it raises the potential, the potential for a strategy that says, 'Listen, Anita Hill has raised this. In order to save Clarence Thomas's nomination we're going to have to, in effect, tear her apart.' Is that pretty much the strategy as you see it?"
--Dan Rather in a CBS Special Report during the hearings, October 11, 1991.

"It is related to what women say, and with justification, about rape charges. If you think you've been raped or you know you have and you come forward with charges, then you suddenly are the person who has to pay the price."
--Dan Rather in a CBS Special Report during the hearings, October 11, 1991.

RATHER:"And, Bruce Fein, what do you make of this so far?"
FEIN: "[I]t sort of harkens back to the Army McCarthy hearings held in this same room, is that Clarence Thomas's offense is like Joseph Welch when he tried to defend against the smear tactics of Joe McCarthy by saying, 'Have you no sense of decency, sir?'"
RATHER: "[W]hat are the chances, in your opinion, that that will be read another way, that some will see this as an effort to sort of steam-roller Anita Hill and her charges and that the cry from the other side will become, 'Have you no decency, sirs? Don't you take this seriously?'"
--Dan Rather and Bruce Fein during a CBS Special Report on the hearing, October 11, 1991.

"One of the running stories of Campaign '92 is that this is the year of the woman. Galvanized by the issues of sexual harassment and abortion rights, the whole Clarence Thomas hearing and so on--more and more women are testing their political power and promising change."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, July 14, 1992.

John Dogget, a friend of Clarence Thomas's, filed an affidavit during the hearings claiming that Anita Hill fantasized about dating men:
BRAVER:"[A]s she left--and she was leaving Washington--at a party, a going-away party for her, [Dogget] says that she came up to him and accused him of trying to lead her on, starting some kind of a romantic interest in her, never following up on it. And he claims that he told her that he had no romantic interest in her at that time and that he was surprised and, in his words, 'I came away from her going-away party feeling that she was somewhat unstable and that in my case she had fantasized about my being interested in her romantically.'"
    "This is his words, this is his affidavit. We don't know whether he's here in Washington and will be brought to testify.... Producer Dick Meyer up here just handed me a note saying that the committee is telling him that there has been no subpoena for this man, no plan to call him to testify."
RATHER: "Well, we're told that the--the FBI--which knowing FBI agents would think that they'd have better things to do--the FBI now have been dispatched to Mr. Doggett. And that as we speak and report to you that Doggett is now talking to the FBI."
--Dan Rather and Rita Braver in a CBS Special Report during the hearings, October 11, 1991.

RATHER: Reagan nominee Douglas Ginsburg is "Bork's ideological soul mate."
PLANTE: "President Reagan nominated another arch-conservative...to the Supreme Court."
--Dan Rather and Bill Plante on the CBS Evening News, October 29, 1988.

During the Nixon administration, Justice Harlan, a liberal, decided to retire from the Supreme Court. This was the fourth justice to resign during his administration:
"Dan Rather appeared on CBS news to tell the American people that the President had known of the Harlan resignation far in advance. 'The letter has been written for weeks,' Rather confided. Rather was wrong again. Actually we had no advance notice; the timing of Harlan's resignation had taken us all by surprise."
--John Ehrlichman, Nixon's chief assistant for domestic affairs, in Witness to Power: The Nixon Years, 1982. print_file('footer'); ?>