For days now, John G. Roberts has been denying that he was a member of the Federalist Society, an extremist right-wing legal organization.
The Washington Post reports this morning:
Over the weekend, The Post obtained a copy of the Federalist Society Lawyers’ Division Leadership Directory, 1997-1998. It lists Roberts, then a partner at the law firm Hogan & Hartson, as a member of the steering committee of the organization’s Washington chapter and includes his firm’s address and telephone number. Yesterday, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Roberts “has no recollection of being a member of the Federalist Society, or its steering committee.”
If I stretch my brain really hard, I can imagine one might forget being a member of an organization. However, how can one forget whether one was on an organization’s steering committee?
This leads me to ask whether John G. Roberts is suffering from premature senility. The other possibility is that John Roberts is lying and trying to hide something he knows would be shameful. Neither possibility inspires confidence regarding a potential supreme court justice.
It is important to know, however: is our next supreme court justice a habitual liar, or is he losing his mental faculties? Which is it?
