There is a television in the locker room at my gym. Usually it’s turned off. If it is turned on, it usually is silent, but Thursday, it was on and the volume was audible. From the sound of things, I thought there were at least four or five women talking about it, but by the time I got to the mirror to put on my makeup, there were three women arguing.

“I like this lady. She doesn’t put up with any crap from these men.”

“This is exactly why I don’t deal with politics. They’re all liars.”

“But sometimes they need to lie.”

“I heard some guy asking her to just answer the question yes or no. Every time she tried to answer, he would just say to answer the question yes or no and she finally said that she wouldn’t do it. She’s cool.”

“All I know is that this lady is tough. She just stands up to all those men.”

“Let me tell ya, if she was a white guy, they wouldn’t even have this on TV.”

“Yeah.” They all agreed on that matter.

“Did you notice how no one stood up for her? If she had been a black Democrat, all the black people would be angry and saying that she shouldn’t have to be on TV. Those blacks only stick up for their own kind when they’re Democrats. Because she’s a Republican, she has to put up with all of this crap.”

I was busy choking in the back area of the locker room. It had been a long time since I’d heard talk like this. I don’t tend to run in Stupid circles, so I forget how short-sighted and simple some people are. The last time I had heard talk this stupid, I worked at K-Mart.

None of them were listening to the testimony anymore. I heard a man’s voice droning on and on and wondered where the question was. If the senator talks more than the person being questioned, are we really learning anything here?

When the senator shut up and she was allowed to talk, I finally understand the war in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Iraq. I can’t remember the question, but she was explaining that the reason that they took the action that they did was that they wanted to hit the terrorists in the places that they cared about. Bin Laden was originally angry with us for liberating Kuwait and pushing Saddam Hussein back to the Iraqi border. Well, if he was angry about that, let’s just wipe Iraq off the face of the planet and see if that’s enough to get him to leave us the hell alone. I was against the invasion of Iraq, but now, I don’t know what is right. Why wasn’t this woman writing the President’s speeches?

My attention turned back to the argument at hand.

“Yeah, it’s just like that Anita Hill thing. She ran that poor guy out of office.”

“No, Clarence Thomas was made a Supreme Court Judge despite Anita Hill.”

“No. That girl just came on TV and said all that stuff about him. If she had been a Democrat, they wouldn’t have made her be on TV like that.”

“No, I tell you. Clarence Thomas is a judge on the Supreme Court. They didn’t even believe Anita Hill and she was black balled for telling the truth.”

By then, it was time for me to go to the mirror, where all the women were arguing. For the first time, I could see that there were only three women, one of which was trying to get out of the conversation. The Bigot was insisting that he didn’t get to be a judge because of that Anita Hill girl. I couldn’t help correcting her error.

“Clarence Thomas IS a judge on the Supreme Court.”

The Bigot didn’t like the odds of arguing with two people who actually knew what they were talking about, so she left the locker room. The Escapee went off with her, leaving me with Anita’s defender. She felt like she had to reiterate her point.

“He IS a judge. They were just awful to her.”

“You’re right. I read an article that says she’s doing ok right now. She has a good position at a school or something. I think she’s ok.”

“That’s good.”

I put on my makeup and dried my wet hair. The whole Anita Hill thing happened when I worked at K-Mart. It was on television every day and every day, I’d walk into the break room to the sound of arguing. It sounded like an open and shut case to me. There are specific statutes of limitations. What happened to her was so long ago that I thought it should be considered irrelevant to their decision about Clarence Thomas. I still didn’t want him to be a judge based on his rulings, but Anita Hill couldn’t help us there.

I remember being so embarrassed by Orrin Hatch, the senator from my home state. He was the senator that likened her experiences to references from fiction, saying that she just made her story up. It all seemed so silly to me. I don’t remember ever hearing any of those stupid senators say the words, “Statute of Limitations.”

Right now, I’m on a News Fast. I don’t watch the news. I don’t read the news. I keep myself completely isolated from it all. Most of it I can’t change. Most of it doesn’t even affect me. All of it makes me totally depressed, so it’s best just to stay away from it. Poor Condoleezza Rice has been just in my peripheral vision. I don’t even know if she really is a Republican or not. This is how I end up getting my news, from a Bigot, an Escapee and one, quiet Knowledgeable One. Not very good sources, if you ask me.

I just have one thing to say to all those “guys” that are giving Condoleeza Rice a hard time, “Hindsight is 20/20, assholes.”