ADP Blog: Roberts is a Liar

Yesterday, one of the bloggers at the Alabama Democratic Party Blog had this to say about Judge Roberts:

Why Supreme Court nominee John Roberts feels he has to lie about his membership in the Federalist Society is beyond me. Sure, they're an ultra conservative legal society, but why lie about membership? And if John Roberts will lie about something small like this, will he lie about much bigger things? And doesn't this mean that the Senate really needs to examine his record and see where he stands on judicial issues?

I don't buy this "I don't recall being a member" malarkey. Roberts was a member of their steering committee. We know this for a fact now, thanks to the Washington Post. Are we honestly expected to believe he doesn't remember serving on the steering committee? How dumb does Roberts and Bush think the American people are? (emphasis added)

To say that Roberts is a liar is a pretty serious accusation, by calling his character into question. To make that kind of statement publicly and without merit invites a defense from those who believe the accusation to be unfair and unsubstantiated. Of course, the ADP bloggers made no effort to actually back up their allegation, so we're left to assume that they drew their conclusion from the Washington Post piece they linked to.

Here are the relevant facts from that article:

Last week, the White House told news organizations that had reported his membership in the group [the Federalist Society] that he had no memory of belonging...

Over the weekend, The Post obtained a copy of the Federalist Society Lawyers' Division Leadership Directory, 1997-1998. It lists Roberts, then a partner at the law firm Hogan & Hartson, as a member of the steering committee of the organization's Washington chapter and includes his firm's address and telephone number.

Yesterday [Sunday], White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Roberts "has no recollection of being a member of the Federalist Society, or its steering committee." Roberts has acknowledged taking part in some Federalist Society activities, Perino said...

Roberts is one of 19 steering committee members listed in the directory, which was provided to The Post by Alfred F. Ross, president of the Institute for Democracy Studies in New York, a liberal group that has published reports critical of the society.

Among the others on the list are such prominent conservatives as William Bradford Reynolds, a Justice Department civil rights chief in the Reagan administration; Ethics and Public Policy Center President M. Edward Whelan III; and the late Barbara Olson, who was a Capitol Hill staff member at the time. Her husband, former U.S. solicitor general Theodore B. Olson, is listed as president of the chapter.

Federalist Society Executive Vice President Leonard A. Leo said that either he or another official of the organization recruited Roberts for the committee. Roberts's task was to serve "as a point of contact within the firm to let people know what is going on" with the organization. "It doesn't meet, it doesn't do a whole lot. The only thing we expect of them is to make sure people in the firm know about us," Leo said.

Membership in the sense of paying dues was not required as a condition of inclusion in a listing of the society's leadership, Leo said. He declined to say whether Roberts had ever paid dues, citing a policy of keeping membership information confidential.

[Edward] Whelan, who has been a member of the Federalist Society but said he had no recollection of his own membership on the steering committee, said the society is tolerant of those who come to its meetings or serve on committees without paying dues...

In 2001, after he was nominated by President Bush for the seat he currently holds on the court of appeals, Roberts spoke to Post reporter James V. Grimaldi and asked him to correct an item Grimaldi had written that described Roberts as a member of the Federalist Society. In a subsequent column, Grimaldi wrote that Roberts "is not and never has been a member of the Federalist Society, as previous reported in this column."

Last Wednesday, the day after Bush announced Roberts's nomination, the officials working on the nomination asked the White House press office to call each news organization that had reported Roberts's membership to tell them that he did not recall being a member.

None of that even remotely suggests that Judge Roberts has lied about his association with the Federalist Society. Indeed, the piece doesn't attribute any quote directly to Roberts. (The White House told...White House spokeswoman what's-her-name said...Post reporter what's-his-face wrote...officials working on the nomination asked the White House media manglers to call...) Every bit of information in the Post article has been filtered through either the White House or the news media. How can anyone say that Judge Roberts lied when they don't even know what the hell he has said?

Even today's New York Times editorial doesn't go so far to say that Roberts is a liar. It does say that "the Senate should make sure that there was no intent to deceive senators or the public" and that Roberts needs to explain his views more fully, but it never once calls him a liar.

The Federalist Society has been in existence since 1982, just 3 years after Roberts graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. It was also the year that President Reagan appointed him as Associate Counsel to the President. For those of you who were schooled in Democrat math, that was 24 years ago. If memory serves me correctly, I was watching Scooby-Doo and playing with Hot Wheels cars at the time.

Federalist Society dues for a lawyer are currently $50. For a public-sector employee, they are $25. Not very substantial, and for a man like Roberts, who doesn't appear to be much of a "joiner," probably not very memorable. It seems to me that "I don't recall" was the safest and most honest answer for Roberts to make, as unfulfilling as that answer may have been. Given his current situation, when the press is parsing his every word and his White House handlers apparently don't know their ass from a hole in the ground, it was probably the best thing he could have said until his confirmation hearing. Just a guess.

There will be plenty of time during Roberts's confirmation hearing for Democrats to ask the question they are dying to ask: "Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Federalist Society?" Until then, the dirty business of disparaging this man's character should stop, and there are at least a couple of Alabama Democrats who need to quit acting like braying jackasses.