Liberal McCarthism

Roger Pilon:

'ARE you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Federalist Society?" There the question was, all but literally, on Page One of Monday's Washington Post.

Early reports that Supreme Court nominee John Roberts belonged to the Federalist Society were denied by both Roberts and the White House, but it seems that a liberal New York group critical of the society, the Institute for Democracy Studies, has dug up a 1997-1998 Federalist Society Lawyers' Division Leadership Directory that lists Roberts as a member of the steering committee of the society's Washington chapter.

Roberts, at the time a lawyer in private practice, continues to profess no recollection of being a member, the White House says.

Two issues loom here. The first is credibility. "The questions about Roberts' involvement with the society," the Post says, "may come down to the meaning of the word 'membership.' " Shades of "it depends what the meaning of 'is' is." But this is no Monicagate. No one has charged yet, and one hopes that no one will, that Roberts has set out deliberately to deceive.

The second issue is much richer. Whether or not Roberts ever was a "member" of the Federalist Society, the question is: So what?

What are we talking about here: the Communist Party? the Ku Klux Klan? No, we're talking about an organization of conservative and libertarian lawyers and legal scholars, begun nearly a quarter of a century ago in response to the overwhelmingly leftist tilt of the nation's law schools, to try to bring some balance and a different perspective to that insular and highly politicized world.

...

The Post story captures it nicely with a quote from Emory Law School Professor David Garrow. "What matters is whether [Roberts] hung out with them [the Federalist Society] and not whether he signed the form or wrote the dues check. What's important is the intellectual immersion." Does that not speak volumes about the mindset at work here? Lawyers who associate with — gasp, think like — conservatives or libertarians need not apply.

Liberals keep revealing themselves in very interesting ways.

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