If you can say one thing about likely future Supreme Court Justice John G. Roberts, it's that he knows how to cloak his more bitter views in a wonderful sugar coating, and how to advise others to do the same. Roberts advised then-nominee Sandra Day O'Connor on how to fly below the radar when he was a Justice Department employee. His views on abortion rights are positively Seussian (he seems to oppose giving federal courts jurisdiction, which won't please his friends on the right...) And there's this little tidbit from last week's Boston Globe:
On matters of civil rights and affirmative action, there are several memos in which Roberts privately denounced a liberal program or position, but urged his bosses to try to avoid confronting the issue. In September 1982, for example, he wrote a memo preparing Smith for a meeting with Coretta Scott King, who wanted Smith to renew a $250,000 grant for the Martin Luther King Jr. Center.
In reality, Roberts wrote, ''the only reason for the grant was the political ties" between Mrs. King and the former administrator of the grant program, and the money had been squandered by poor management. But in Smith's meeting with King, Roberts advised, the attorney general should praise the program's goals, express ''pleasure" that the federal government could be of assistance, but explain that no further funds were available.
And in a 1981 memo, Roberts wrote a deeply skeptical review of a report outlining the need for affirmative action. Roberts wrote that the report was the ''swan song" of the outgoing Carter-era chairman of the US Commission on Civil Rights. ''The logic of the report is perfectly circular: the evidence of structural discrimination consists of disparate results, so it is only cured when 'correct' results are achieved through affirmative action quotas," Roberts wrote, later adding that a certain minority recruitment had failed because ''the affirmative action program required the recruiting of inadequately prepared candidates."
Nevertheless, Roberts wrote to Smith, there was no reason to be candid about that view: ''I have drafted an innocuous reply to [the civil rights commission chairman]. The report is attached, although I do not recommend reading it."
Again, Roberts will likely get through, and Democrats shouldn't waste too much energy opposing him (trust me, Bush could do worse, and probably will next time). But it's always good to know who you're dealing with ... This is especially interesting since Roberts' views on civil rights could very well emerge as the sleeper issue in his confirmation hearings. |
