I’ve been thinking about this since last night and can’t make up my mind. Was it an earnest attempt to find reconciliation? Or was it Virginia Thomas’s way of dropping a “Just a reminder: You’re a liar” candygram in Hill’s inbox?

Either way, ringing up old enemies out of the blue decades after the fact to ask if they’re ready to apologize is a mighty creative way of handling a grudge.

A few days ago, Brandeis University professor Anita Hill received a message on her voice mail at work.

“Good morning, Anita Hill, it’s Ginny Thomas,” said the voice. “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 come to understand why you did what you did. OK, have a good day.”…

Hill told ABC News: “Even if it wasn’t a prank, it was in no way conciliatory for her to begin with the presumption that I did something wrong in 1991. I simply testified to the truth of my experience. For her to say otherwise is not extending an olive branch, it’s accusatory.”

She continued: “I don’t apologize. I have no intention of apologizing, and I stand by my testimony in 1991.”

She ended up reporting the call to campus police, thinking it could only be a prank, and asked that they, er, send it along to the FBI. (Why?) Actually, my main curiosity here has to do with the timing: According to Jonathan Capehart, it came at 7:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning. When I first heard about it, I thought it might have to do with the anniversary of Thomas’s hearings and Hill’s testimony (which took place in mid-October of 1991), but the timing here makes it sound less planned and more spontaneous. Like, sitting there at breakfast and suddenly thinking, “You know who I feel like calling? Anita Hill.” Any theories?