Law School classmates claimed thatnanimals had always interested thenjudge. In the mornings at New Haven,nthey said, he would deliver an impromptuncolloquium on last night’snflick (and Flicka). Thomas refused tonanswer questions about his alleged interestnin pornography, and the senatorsn— caught between the Scylla and Charybdisnof the feminists and the blacksn— didn’t dare ask. Newsweek, however,nreported that a prominent newspapern(the Washington Post) is sitting on ancomputer listing of Thomas’s videonrentals. They are rank stuffs. WhennRobert Bork’s rental records were publishednin the Post, he was found to be anman of taste. Do even Thomas’s mostnardent supporters think that aboutnhim?nYet it was all, claimed Thomas in hisnprepared testimony, a “high-technlynching for uppity blacks who deignnto think for themselves.” Thomas-wasn— as usual — using race to advancenhimself Few noticed that he didn’tnknow the meaning of “deign,” as fewnnoticed when Senator Alan Simpsonn(Republican-Wyoming) quoted Othellonto Thomas, about “Who steals mynpurse steals trash; . . . But he thatnfilches from me my good name . . . ,”nthat the words were spoken to deceive,nby that master of deception, lago.nThomas accused his enemies ofnusing a racially bigoted stereotype ofnblack male sexuality, but no one callednblack moviemaker Spike Lee to testify,nalthough his work seems to be fillednwith these same bigoted stereotypes.nTo the trumpeted delight of the WhitenHouse, black public opinion, mildlynpro-Thomas before, swung heavily tonhis side when he charged racism, nonmatter how absurdly.nSome saw Hill as telling tales out ofnschool. “For us black people, anythingnthat occurs within the race, whether innthe workplace, within our families ornprivate lives, it’s a deeply personal andnprivate affair,” UCLA law professornKim Crenshaw told the Los AngelesnTimes. “For that to be made so verynpublic is a sense of violation of ourncollective privacy.” “If black folks keepntelling on one another, the black mannwill never get ahead,” said D.C. businessmannIrvin Johnson.nAfter watching Thomas’s defense,nhowever, constitutional lawyer BrucenFein came to a different conclusion:n6/CHRONICLESnthat the “nomination should be rejected”nbecause of the temperament hendisplayed. Indeed, it’s tough to think ofnAntonin Scalia reacting in the samenway. And according to John Elvin ofnthe Washington Times, some legal officialsnfound Thomas to be “obnoxious,narrogant, rude, and impolite.”nThe White House contended thatnthe hearings were a trial, and Thomasnshould be confirmed unless he werenfound guilty beyond a reasonablendoubt. But that’s nonsense. Thomasnwas up for a lifetime appointment tonone of the highest offices. Any reasonablendoubt should have defeated him.n(One reason the debate was so hot wasnthe stakes: a lifetime appointment.nStrict term limitations make sense fornfederal judges.)nBy using racial racketeering to confirmnThomas, to the cheers of conservatives,nthe White House may havenchanged the Republican Party. Thenfirst fruit was Bush’s endorsement ofnthe antiproperty, antibusiness CivilnRights Act of 1991. It may also havenchanged the conservative movement.nOnly five senators voted against thisn. horrendous bill. Any opposition to similarnscams will now be unrespectable.nClarence Thomas may be an improvementnon Roe v. Wade, althoughnI’m not holding my breath. But on racenprivilege, the problem he was supposednto be nominated to combat, he willnindeed be another Thurgood Marshall.nAnd just like the appointment of JacknKemp to HUD, we now have anothernconservative victory to celebrate.n— Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.nD WIGHT MACDONALD, one ofnour few perceptive political critics innthat bleakest of decades, the 1940’s,nwrote of the Henry Wallace campaignnof 1948: “Populism today is a shellnwhich can be filled with any content,neven Stalinism, and hence offers itsnprophet no guide to behavior. ComparenBryan’s and Wallace’s audiences.nBryan’s favorite platform was thenChautauqua lecture: when he was secretarynof state, he was criticized forncontinuing to appear on the Chautauquancircuit along with Swiss bell ringersnand ‘Sears, the Taffy Man.’ The Chautauquanaudience was composed ofnreligious-minded, agrarian provincialsnwho hated ‘Wall Street’ and detestednnnthe sophisticated, irreligious culture ofnthe eastern seaboard. But Wallace’snaudience is drawn from liberals whonare well-off and sophisticated. Fornthem, populism is, culturally, a phonynway of making a connection with theninarticulate masses (like Josh White’snsongs).”nTwenty-five years later, Macdonaldnadded a musical footnote to his essay;nhe championed Country Joe Mc­nDonald over the “folkery-fakery”nof Pete Seeger. Mr. Seeger is still withnus, and ersatz Henry Wallace populismnis back with a vengeance. Its latestnstandard-bearer is another son of Iowa,nSenator Tom Harkin — or “Tom WilliamnJennings Harkin,” as the NewnRepublic calls him. (This is supposednto be an insult.) Anyway, Harkin isnpure counterfeit: a statist liberal, awashnin PAC money, whose wife is a richnlawyer at Akin, Cump — one of Washington’snhigh-octane firms. Harkin isnabrasive and cruel, unlike the daffynidealist Wallace, a decent fool whomnWestbrook Pegler dubbed “OldnBubblehead.”nLike Bryan populism, rock and rollnrings truest in the accents of the Southnor small-town Midwest. Yet rock critics,nlike pundits, are usually of affluentnEastern backgrounds; they prefer thenmannered, the self-conscious, the safe.nWhen confronted with the genuinenarticle — Ceorge Wallace, HueynLong, Axl Rose — they flee to thenillusory high ground of moral indignation.nAxl Rose, in case you don’t know, isnan insolent brat from Lafayette, Indiana,nwho sings for the most popularnhard rock band in America, Guns ‘N’nRoses. He acts like any Main Streetnvideo arcade loudmouth, meaning henbrags about his sexual exploits, callsnhomosexuals “faggots,” and tells foreignersnto “go back to Iran.” Axl’s antypical rowdy white-trash kid —nsmoking and drinking and not takingnhis SATs like a good Jason or Jennifern— yet the New York City-based pressnhas demonized him as the smackshootingnreincarnation of Joe McCarthy.nThat he is the most pilloried figurenin rock and roll — and, among working-nand middle-class kids, the mostnadulated — suggests the enormous gulfnbetween those who live in America andnthose who run it.nThere’s no chance of hearing Gunsn