ANTI-THOMAS SMEARS REVEAL TRUE DESPERATION OF THE LEFT

As we move into the dog days of August, the careful observer sees unfolding a drearily familiar scenario. With the attention of millions of vacation-bound Americans diverted, the well-coordinated, full-scale, attempted `Borking' of Judge Clarence Thomas is moving into high gear.

There can be no doubt that Sen. Jack Danforth is uncommonly able, and he recently told this writer he's spending half his time shepherding the Thomas nomination through Senate waters, which are known to be shark-infested. (My evaluation, not Sen. Danforth's). Recall that it was the Reagan White House's departure for an August California ranch vacation, four years ago this month, which allowed fiercely determined liberal pressure groups to rev up their disgraceful campaign against Judge Robert Bork. With its Moscow summit pageantry completed, one hopes the attention of the Bush White House can be engaged on this, their most important domestic initiative, before the beguiling charms of an extended soiree in Kennebunkport cause one and all to forget the cunning ways of the opposition.

For that opposition (such as it is) remains deadly serious about keeping Clarence Thomas in his place. At first, one resisted believing that either senators, or the liberal interest groups who can make so many Senate Democrats dance, would be ready for the sort of all-out sleaze they practiced four years ago. One would think that, and one would be wrong.

Week before last saw the opening salvoes, a replay of the all-out war against Robert Bork, as with his nomination in July-August-September, 1987. Monday, it was The Alliance for Justice; Tuesday, Norman Lear's People for the American Way, and the Women's Legal Defense Fund; Wednesday, the NAACP, followed by the AFL-CIO. This past week, it was something called the "Leadership Conference on Civil Rights", linchpin for the anti-Bork effort. (This latter group even trotted out Missouri's tired, old, twice-defeated Harriett Woods, last seen in her '86 campaign, choosing Jane Fonda's money over Missouri's VFW, which demanded she return the Fonda donation. Woods chose Fonda over Missouri's largest veterans organization, and suffered the consequences.)

All this was of course carefully timed and coordinated, to give the impression of a rising crescendo. In reality, we're seeing another episode in the scorched-earth politics that is permanently discrediting these Jack-in-the-Box liberal pressure groups among all but their fiercest partisans.

The NAACP's contribution to the Thomas nomination debate has all the force of the overseer's whip. It's the NAACP's own unique update on the last century's infamous Fugitive Slave Act:

There will be no slaves allowed to escape from the Liberal Plantation. No runaways allowed. None.

From the NAACP and from Big Labor, comes the dictate; from its requirements, there can be no reprieve: While blacks must no longer be servile, they must be predictable. They must never be allowed to do their own thinking, lest they stray from the familiar confines of the Liberal Plantation.

Incredible. An organization dedicated to advancing the welfare of black Americans now stands as the principal obstacle to a distinguished black American's occupying a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States. The NAACP took no position on the elevation to Chief Justice of William Rehnquist, nor on the nominations of Justices David Souter, or Antonin Scalia, or Anthony Kennedy white males, all. But let a black conservative be appointed, and they rush out to declare him "unfit." Who's playing the race card now?

Still, reasons for hope abound. Not only do ordinary black Americans support Thomas bymore than 3-1 in every poll, but prominent black commentators are supportive as well.

William Raspberry, the consistently interesting black columnist for The Washington Post, quotes a black friend who offered this pungent observation on Clarence Thomas:

"Given a choice between two conservatives, I'll take the one who's been called `nigger.'"

Then, this week, came another blow to the anti-Thomas smear campaign. Distinguished St. Louis attorney Margaret Bush Wilson, who chaired the national board of the NAACP from 1975 to 1984, weighed in with a column in The Washington Post in which she strongly endorsed "the Clarence Thomas I know." (She has known him since he lived in her St. Louis home during the summer of 1974, while the young Yale Law graduate studied for the Missouri Bar exam before starting to work in Jack Danforth's Attorney General office.)

Clarence Thomas remains an overwhelming favorite for confirmation, with farreaching consequences. But win or lose, the groups opposing him are revealing themselves to be increasingly impotent practitioners of a scorched-earth politics that should discredit them among all fair-minded people.