Like Kevin Drum, I find it a little tough to get worked up over yesterday’s flap surrounding Supreme Court nominee John Roberts and whether or not he was a member of the conservative Federalist Society. It showed plenty of unnecessary sloppiness on the White House’s part — first he was a member, then he wasn’t, then he was but he didn’t pay dues — but this is hardly disqualifying news. If we’re going to put Roberts through his paces, we’ll need a lot more than this.
Having said that, there is an interesting angle to this. Roberts himself hasn’t said much publicly, so the confusion here is generated entirely by the Bush gang. When journalists first started reporting that Roberts, like every other powerful Republican lawyer in the nation, was a Federalist Society member, it was the White House that called around, insisting on a correction.
There was something of an inference in the WH message — those Federalist Society guys aren’t mainstream, so no one should believe that Roberts is with them. Roberts, the White House seemed to imply, is above joining ideological/activist groups.
And while the left is annoyed by the attempt at deception, the really amusing part of this is seeing how angry the right is at the White House’s implications.
The White House’s efforts to distance Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. from The Federalist Society came under fire from conservatives yesterday for creating a blemish on his candidacy where none existed, and for sending a signal that membership in the influential legal society was something to avoid.
In conference calls plotting strategy for his nomination, conservatives spoke angrily yesterday about the White House’s decision to disassociate Roberts from the group. Many conservatives said the society should not be treated like a pariah, and questioned what would happen if the next Supreme Court nominee is a member.
The Federalist Society may be wrong about a great number of things, but they actually have a good point here. I know; I was surprised too.
Ever since the Federalist Society started having a significant impact in legal circles, the left has wanted to create a stigma around the group. This is an organization, the left said, of partisan ideologues who wish to impose a conservative agenda on the federal judiciary. It’s members, using this argument, should be held suspect.
As it turns out, while the left’s stigmatization efforts weren’t successful, the Bush White House has stepped in to do the job for us. By going to such lengths to distance Roberts from the group, even going so far as to start parsing the word “membership,” the Bush gang has done the left a huge favor — they’ve done more to malign the Federalist Society’s reputation in two days than we have in two years.
Manuel Miranda of the conservative Third Branch Conference said grass-roots leaders on his weekly conference call argued yesterday that the White House should not have tried to downplay Roberts’s involvement with the society.
”Our feeling was that the White House should not be in the business of disassociating themselves or appearing to repudiate The Federalist Society,” Miranda said. ”It’s a bad idea because the next nominee could be a member, so what kind of message are you sending?”
As it turns out, a pretty helpful one.