THEY ALL LOOK ALIKE

Was anyone else disturbed by the principal conceit of "I Did Do It," the Maureen Dowd column in today's New York Times? Look, I'm no fan of Clarence Thomas, but really -- the only person she could find to compare him with was another black man, one who happens to be (OK, allegedly) a murderer?

I look at the self-righteous, underqualified Clarence Thomas, a Poppy Bush appointee, and I'm reminded of Poppy's self-righteous, underqualified vice president, and Poppy's self-righteous, underqualified son and namesake. I'm not reminded of a murderer, even if Thomas and Simpson are both black.

And am I reading too much into this line from the Dowd column? The column is in Thomas voice; in it, Thomas says this about "A." (who turns out to be not Anita Hill, as you're led to believe, but Al Gore):

Not the sort of person I'd like to tailgate with, listen to Marvin Gaye with, share Ripple or a Scotch and Drambuie or a blackberry brandy with -- if I were still drinking.

I know Thomas writes in his book about having had a drinking problem. I don't know if he mentions Ripple -- maybe he does. Maybe, as a young man, he drank it. But if so, why does Dowd feel that this is one of the few details out of the entire book that merits inclusion in her column?

I think she remembers, as I remember, the 1970s white stereotype of blacks, which included the consumption of this particular cheap, absurdly named wine. Ripple is certainly part of Dom Imus's stereotype of blacks, or at least it used to be:

I listened to Imus when was on NBC AM radio in the mid 1970's when he was on drugs and alcohol.

He had a black engineer named Flash Gordine.

He would ask Flash if was going to be picking up any woman at night. Flash would say ya, the white woman and Imus and him would go into the two white hookers and a goat and a bottle of Ripple is all that was needed....

Ripple and Marvin Gaye. That's part of what MoDo wants you to laugh at regarding Clarence Thomas -- the image of him listening to black-guy music while drinking cheap black-guy wine. It's not her only line of attack, but why is it in there at all?