Changes

Nonetheless, Thomas was confirmed by the Senate with a vote of 52-48, which was at the time the narrowest confirmation of a Supreme Court nominee in history.

Nonetheless, Thomas was confirmed by the Senate with a vote of 52-48, which was at the time the narrowest confirmation of a Supreme Court nominee in history.

===Smear campaign===

===Racist smear campaign===

Radical [[leftist]]s attempted to block Thomas' nomination to the High Court through a persistent series of public [[guilt by association]] smears.<ref>[http://www.theroc.org/roc-mag/textarch/roc-07/roc07-13.htm ''A Few Facts About Clarence Thomas,''] Chip Berlet, Political Research Associates, Cambridge MA, 1997. [[Chip Berlet]] of [[Political Research Associates]] noted that Thomas was on the editorial board of the ''Lincoln Review'', a quarterly black conservative publication of the Lincoln Institute. Berlet issued a rather dubious ''ad hominem'' attack which claimed "it is a far right group that has worked in coalition with… fascist and anti-Semitic groups," and goes on to "link" Lincoln Institute head J. A. Baker with the Indiana Ku Klux Klan by virtue that Baker is on the board of the Council for National Policy and another board member is supposedly a former Klan member.</ref> Sen. [[Joseph Biden]] agreed to hold a series of [[racism|racially motivated]] hearings dubbed "the Anita Hill hearings" which have been described as a "high tech lynching for uppidy blacks."<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2yfARRF9Co Clarence Thomas Hearings: Biden Questions Thomas 1]</ref>   

Radical [[leftist]]s attempted to block Thomas' nomination to the High Court through a persistent series of public [[guilt by association]] smears.<ref>[http://www.theroc.org/roc-mag/textarch/roc-07/roc07-13.htm ''A Few Facts About Clarence Thomas,''] Chip Berlet, Political Research Associates, Cambridge MA, 1997. [[Chip Berlet]] of [[Political Research Associates]] noted that Thomas was on the editorial board of the ''Lincoln Review'', a quarterly black conservative publication of the Lincoln Institute. Berlet issued a rather dubious ''ad hominem'' attack which claimed "it is a far right group that has worked in coalition with… fascist and anti-Semitic groups," and goes on to "link" Lincoln Institute head J. A. Baker with the Indiana Ku Klux Klan by virtue that Baker is on the board of the Council for National Policy and another board member is supposedly a former Klan member.</ref> Sen. [[Joseph Biden]] agreed to hold a series of [[racism|racially motivated]] hearings dubbed "the [[Anita Hill]] hearings" which have been described as a "high tech lynching for uppidy blacks."<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2yfARRF9Co Clarence Thomas Hearings: Biden Questions Thomas 1]</ref>   

In a flagrant violation of the rules of the [[United States Senate|Senate]],<ref>[http://www.loc.gov/rr/law/nominations/thomas/debates.pdf Congressional Record -Senate, 102nd Congress, October 7, 1991], Vol 137, Part 18, p. 25706.</ref> staff members<ref>{{cite web |last1=Brock |first1=David |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150212132454/http://www.uiowa.edu/~030116/153/articles/brock01.htm |title=''The Real Anita Hill'' |work=[[University of Iowa]] |date=March 1992 }}</ref> for a sitting [[Democratic]] member of the Judiciary Committee leaked a routine confidential FBI background report to [[Nina Totenberg]] of [[National Public Radio]] (NPR)<ref>[http://backissues.cjrarchives.org/year/92/1/thomas.asp  The Clarence Thomas Hearings], by William Boot, ''Columbia Journalism Review'', January/February 1992.</ref> which contained a vicious defamatory smear intended to mar Thomas for life. The accusation was known to be false, and was concocted to publicly intimidate an African-American Republican from accepting an appointment to the nation's High Court, and derail his nomination. None of the allegations could be substantiated. The deliberate falsehoods did however persuade former [[Ku Klux Klan]] [[Democrat]]ic [[Senator]] [[Robert Byrd]] to change his vote from "yes" for confirmation to "no".

In a flagrant violation of the rules of the [[United States Senate|Senate]],<ref>[http://www.loc.gov/rr/law/nominations/thomas/debates.pdf Congressional Record -Senate, 102nd Congress, October 7, 1991], Vol 137, Part 18, p. 25706.</ref> staff members<ref>{{cite web |last1=Brock |first1=David |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150212132454/http://www.uiowa.edu/~030116/153/articles/brock01.htm |title=''The Real Anita Hill'' |work=[[University of Iowa]] |date=March 1992 }}</ref> for a sitting [[Democratic]] member of the Judiciary Committee leaked a routine confidential FBI background report to [[Nina Totenberg]] of [[National Public Radio]] (NPR)<ref>[http://backissues.cjrarchives.org/year/92/1/thomas.asp  The Clarence Thomas Hearings], by William Boot, ''Columbia Journalism Review'', January/February 1992.</ref> which contained a vicious defamatory smear intended to mar Thomas for life. The accusation was known to be false, and was concocted to publicly intimidate an African-American Republican from accepting an appointment to the nation's High Court, and derail his nomination. None of the allegations could be substantiated. The deliberate falsehoods did however persuade former [[Ku Klux Klan]] [[Democrat]]ic [[Senator]] [[Robert Byrd]] to change his vote from "yes" for confirmation to "no".