THE NEW LINE OF ATTACK...:

In Reagan's White House, a Clever, Sometimes Cocky John Roberts (JOHN M. BRODER and CAROLYN MARSHALL, 5/27/05, NY Times)

A sliver of John G. Roberts's voluminous files from his years as a junior White House lawyer reveals a young man with a facile mind and a sharp and sometimes smart-alecky tongue. [...]

The papers here show that in August 1983, Mr. Roberts was asked to draft a response to a letter to Mr. Reagan from a college professor who feared he might land on an alleged United States Information Agency blacklist for lodging a complaint about the agency. Mr. Roberts, in a memorandum to his boss, Fred F. Fielding, the White House counsel, noted in an aside, "Once you let the word out there's a blacklist, everybody wants to get on."

There was also the time he offered a snide analysis, in an internal White House memorandum, of a proposal from a member of the House, Elliott H. Levitas. After the Supreme Court struck down efforts by Congress to veto actions taken by the executive branch, Mr. Levitas, a Democrat from Georgia, proposed that the White House and Congress convene a "conference on power-sharing" to codify the duties of each branch of government.

Asked to comment on the congressman's proposal, Mr. Roberts mocked the idea, and him. "There already has, of course, been a 'Conference on Power Sharing,' " Mr. Roberts wrote in a memo to Mr. Fielding. "It took place in Philadelphia's Constitution Hall in 1787, and someone should tell Levitas about it and the 'report' it issued."

Mr. Roberts also expressed mild scorn for two members of the District of Columbia City Council, Wilhelmina Rolark and David A. Clarke, who along with Mayor Marion S. Barry Jr. and others were seeking more autonomy for the city. When asked to assess a proposed response from a Justice Department lawyer to the municipal officials, he wrote that "I will call the attorney at Justice handling this matter and suggest use of a more neutral sobriquet than 'the Home Rule Act' in the Clarke and Rolark reply, and some stylistic changes to prevent the last sentence in the Clarke and Rolark letter, which also appears in the Barry letter, from reading as if it were an awkward translation from Bulgarian."

...he's a saucy little minx?

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 27, 2005 9:15 AM