Food for thought in the Obits

The name was familiar: Harry Dent. The rest of the headline on the obituary turned the screw of why we still despise Richard Nixon: “an architect of Nixon Southern Strategy.” Still hurts, doesn’t it? Our beloved country could have blossomed into a more friendly and fair place after the turmoil of the Civil Rights era, but instead a mean-spirited president fueled racism for political gain. And this guy Harry Dent, who passed away in Columbia, SC, on Friday at age 77, was an architect of it.

Let’s read into it. Strom Thurmond surfaces as a Democrat-turned Republican via Dixiecratism, and Harry Dent was on his staff. Nixon narrowly beat Hubert Humphrey in 1968, partly thanks to Dent’s “having helped articulate the Southern strategy,” in the words of the New York Times obit. Dent was rewarded with the post of special counsel in the White House.

Dent didn’t fare too well after Watergate; he was found guilty of a little illegal fund-raising but only got a month of probation. Good enough to advise Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush and be chair of the South Carolina Republican Party.

A sign of conscience surfaces at the very end of the obit, reporting what he told the Washington Post in a 1981 interview: “When I look back, my biggest regret now is anything I did that stood in the way of the rights of black people,” he said, “Or any people.”

It’s refreshing, every so slightly, that the prospect of the Pearly Gates may make even nasty Republicans regret their sins.

Now turn to the Op-Ed Page

Here the reader doesn’t have to be quite so old to remember the subject: Anita Hill writes an essay in response to the blast of publicity from Clarence Thomas, who became Supreme Court associate justice in 1991 even though Ms. Hill made pretty clear he had behaved very badly to her. In his memoir now on the market, Thomas is doing it again, she writes.

I’ve heard a lot about this in the past few days. On Monday NPR had a long segment on this and other Supreme Court issues, in which commentators on the Diane Rheem show expressed puzzlement at why Thomas is still so mad at Ms. Hill. The next day Rush Limbaugh fawned over Thomas for 90 minutes with nary a tough question. Somewhere in all that I heard – was it Thomas himself who said it? – that fellow Justice Antonin Scalia had said he himself was pretty conservative but he wasn’t “nuts” like Thomas. Ha ha.

Let’s remind ourselves that it’s George H. W. Bush we have to thank for nominating Thomas, and let’s wonder if the counsel of Harry Dent (see above) had anything to do with it.

Final word goes to Ms. Hill, who says people who are treated badly in the workplace have better protections today than when she tried to blow the whistle on Thomas and found her own character ripped apart for no good reason. “But that could change. Our legal system will suffer if a sitting justice’s vitriolic pursuit of personal vindication discourages others from standing up for their rights.”

Bravery will be required for whistle-blowers, as ever in this land of the free and the home of the brave.

The links: to Harry Dent obit, to Anita Hill's op-ed piece.