LTE: Philadelphia Inquirer, 7/26/05

I thought Steve Chapman's column on Roberts, published
today in the Philadelphia Inquirer, was thought
provoking.

I do, however, wonder when the column was written. I
am disturbed by, and Chapman does not address, Mr.
Roberts' failure to "recollect" that he was a member
of the Federalist Society, which smacks of dishonesty
especially considering that he was on the steering
committee. The parsing of "member" is more than a
little Clintonian.

I am not one of those people who believes that
association with the Federalist Society is a
disqualifier for consideration for the Supreme Court
justice. I AM one of those people who is dismayed
when someone, especially a SCOTUS nominee, tries to
pull the wool over my eyes about his/her past
political activity.

If Roberts is willing to prevaricate about little
things, what does that say about his willingness to
prevaricate about more important topics?

Brendan Skwire

Chapman's response
Subject: RE: roberts column
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 10:24:06 -0500
From: "Chapman, Steve" [SChapman@tribune.com]
To: "Brendan Skwire"

Mr. Skwire:

Thanks for sending this. FYI, I wrote that column before the news about
the Federalist Society came out.

Steve Chapman