Is David Brock A Crock?

An author who strongly criticized Anita Hill after the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has backed off his claims.

David Brock wrote the best-selling 1993 book, "The Real Anita Hill," challenging her allegations of sexual harassment that almost derailed Thomas' nomination to the Supreme Court.

Brock described Hill then as "a bit nutty."

"I was a witting cog in the Republican sleaze machine," Brock says in the August issue of Talk magazine, which ran excerpts from his upcoming book "Blinded by the Right."

Thomas had no comment, said Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg.

In 1992, Brock wrote an article for the conservative magazine The American Spectator that became the basis for his book on Hill.

Brock now says that in that article he did everything "to ruin Hill's credibility" and he dumped "virtually every derogatory — and often contradictory — allegation I had collected on Hill into the vituperative mix."

"I demonized Democratic senators, their staffs and Hill's feminist supporters without ever interviewing any of them," Brock wrote.

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