Friday, August 19, 2005

Sometimes, the news doesn’t agitate as apparently intended

Partisan Politics
A headline in today's Washington Post informs that Roberts Resisted Women's Rights. On reading the story, these horrific facts were made evident:
Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. consistently opposed legal and legislative attempts to strengthen women's rights during his years as a legal adviser in the Reagan White House, disparaging what he called "the purported gender gap" and, at one point, questioning "whether encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good."

In internal memos, Roberts urged President Ronald Reagan to refrain from embracing any form of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment pending in Congress; he concluded that some state initiatives to curb workplace discrimination against women relied on legal tools that were "highly objectionable"; and he said that a controversial legal theory then in vogue -- of directing employers to pay women the same as men for jobs of "comparable worth" -- was "staggeringly pernicious" and "anti-capitalist."

...

Covering a period from 1982 to 1986 -- during his tenure as associate counsel to Reagan -- the memos, letters and other writings show that Roberts endorsed a speech attacking "four decades of misguided" Supreme Court decisions on the role of religion in public life, urged the president to hold off saying AIDS could not be transmitted through casual contact until more research was done, and argued that promotions and firings in the workplace should be based entirely on merit, not affirmative action programs.

In October 1983, Roberts said that he favored the creation of a national identity card to prove American citizenship, even though the White House counsel's office was officially opposed to the idea. He wrote that such measures were needed in response to the "real threat to our social fabric posed by uncontrolled immigration."
Now, as a side note, much of this wasn't news to me, as I'd already heard it during the breathless expose on NPR's All Things Considered, the night that 5,000 pages of records had been made available, and all the progressives ganged up looking for instances where Roberts had called someone a homo or some other such disqualifying action.

However, when put in context, like the WaPo did for me, uh, wait a minute. Even in context, the only thing I see there that's even worth a raised eyebrow is the silliness about AIDS transmission. I was around in the early 80s, but can't recall how institutionalized that sort of scientific ignorance was at the time, so I don't really take it all that seriously.

(If you don't already think me an intemperate red-neck, see the rest below the fold)


Posted by Patton on 08/19/05 at 04:08 PM
Partisan Politics • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink