There are only two plausible explanations for the bizarre, out-of-the-blue phone call Mrs. Justice Clarence Thomas placed to Ms. Call-for-Justice Anita Hill this past Columbus Day weekend.

[Text of voicemail, via the New York Times: “Good morning Anita Hill, it’s Ginni Thomas. I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband.

[“So give it some thought. And certainly pray about this and hope that one day you will help us understand why you did what you did. O.K., have a good day.”]

Back story helpfully provided by the Times:

Ms. Hill had been an aide to Mr. Thomas at the Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. President George Bush nominated Mr. Thomas to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant by Justice Thurgood Marshall in 1991.

In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ms. Hill claimed that Mr. Thomas had repeatedly made inappropriate sexual comments to her in the workplace, including descriptions of pornographic films. Mr. Thomas denied the allegations and called them “a high-tech lynching.”

In her 1998 book “Speaking Truth to Power,” Ms. Hill noted that she had been accused of harboring a romantic interest in Justice Thomas by his wife. “Virginia Thomas and I have never met,” Ms. Hill wrote. “And one can imagine that she is guided by her own romantic interest in her husband when she assumes that other women find him attractive as well.”

Justice Thomas weighed in with his own autobiography in 2007, “My Grandfather’s Son, ” referring to Ms. Hill as “my most traitorous adversary” and asserting that liberal advocacy groups stooped to “the age-old blunt instrument of accusing a black man of sexual misconduct” to block his ascent because of his conservative views.

So, what’s going on here with the phone call and all?

Explanation #1: Virginia Thomas Drunk-Dialed Anita Hill on October 9th

The hardworking staff is totally rooting for this explanation although – according to the Times piece – Ms. Thomas placed the call at 7:31 am, which is not exactly your prime drunk-dialing timeslot.

Not helping matters: “In a statement conveyed through a publicist, Ms. Thomas confirmed leaving the message, which she portrayed as a peacemaking gesture. She did not explain its timing.”

Explanation #2: Virginia Thomas Is Doing To The Media What The Mister Hoped To Do To Anita Hill

Mrs. Injustice Clarence Thomas has recently launched the conservative advocacy group Liberty Central.  Via The Grio:

The prime goal of the group is to raise bushels of cash from corporations and wealthy donors to bankroll conservative candidates, and to keep a scorecard on the voting records of members of Congress. The scorecard is a not so subtle threat to wavering GOP representatives to toe the hard right line against any and everything that the Obama administration proposes. As ostensibly a non-profit, non-partisan group, it can raise as much money as it wants, with absolutely no rules of disclosure.

That lack of disclosure also apparently applies to early-morning crank calls.