Charlie Savage has resurrected an intriguing find. Trolling like Marcy Wheeler through a 2005 records dump, he found two snippy notes relating to Michael Jackson, written by Chief Justice John Roberts in 1984. (These were also discussed in the context of Mr. Roberts’ 2005 confirmation hearings.) Mr. Roberts was then a 29 year-old fledgling lawyer working in the Reagan White House.
As a fourth-year lawyer, Mr. Roberts would have gotten a lot of the scut work at the White House’s Office of Legal Counsel, including whether to send two letters from the President to Michael Jackson. One was to commemorate a joint visit Mr. Reagan made with Mr. Jackson in June 1984 to an anti-drunk driving campaign (when M.A.D.D. was four year-old phenomenon). The other, three months later, was a letter to gracefully decline an invitation to attend a Jackson concert to be held at RFK stadium, as well as to decline to invite him to the White House.
Such letters are routine; the White House responds to thousands of them every year. President Reagan was a lifelong showman – in and out of Hollywood – who was famous for keeping up relations with other entertainers. Michael Jackson was then at the height of his career. At Mr. Roberts’ suggestion, the White House declined to issue either letter.
One interesting aspect Mr. Savage catches is the snippy, exasperated tone in the voice of a junior lawyer working for the Hollywood president. Commenting on his recommendation to reject the first letter, Mr. Roberts wrote,:
I recognize that I am something of a vox clamans in terris in this area, but enough is enough. The Office of Presidential Correspondence is not yet an adjunct of Michael Jackson’s PR firm. “Billboard” can quite adequately cover the event by reproducing the award citation and/or reporting the President’s remarks.
A google search for Mr. Roberts’ Latin phrase yielded 30,000 responses, including one from the National Review, debating the correctness of his usage, that he was a voice crying in the wilderness. Commenting on his recommendation to reject the second letter, Mr. Roberts repeated himself:
I hate to sound like one of Mr. Jackson’s records, constantly repeating the same refrain, but I recommend that we not approve this letter. Sometimes people need to be reminded of the obvious: whatever its status as a cultural phenomenon, the Jackson concert tour is a massive commercial undertaking. The tour will do quite well financially by coming to Washington, and there is no need for the President to applaud such enlightened self-interest. Frankly, I find the obsequious attitude of some members of the White House staff toward Mr. Jackson’s attendants, and the fawning posture they would have the President of the United States adopt, more than a little embarrassing.
That Mr. Roberts is conservative, was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and has a narrow sense of what constitutes American culture, is not news. Digby digs into him here.
What I found interesting is that neither review involved a single legal issue. Mr. Roberts was giving his personal opinion. A 29 year-old associate was telling a former "B" grade Hollywood actor-cum-president to distance himself from a contemporary entertainment icon whose appeal across color, age and ethnic boundaries dwarfed Mr. Reagan’s. Should we assume that Mr. Roberts’ political judgment has not improved and that he still issues personal opinions in the guise of professional judgment?
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Yes.
That’s what lawyering — and now Chief Justicing — mean to John Roberts: expressing his personal opinions in a manner suited to impress his Owners and enable them to continue to impose their grievous status quo on the rest of us.
vox clamantis in deserto: the voice of one crying in the wilderness
We have just been reminded that Justice Roberts is not vox populi.
Mr. Roberts, of course, wrote vox clamans in terris in his note to his boss, Fred Fielding, which I presume is a more generic “voice in the land”. It might have been an inside baseball quotation, but in 1984, it would have been a bit precious.
In any case, it’s as you say, Mr. Roberts is like the Matt Damon character in The Good Shepherd: he’s one of the WASP’s (and now Catholics) who own the place; the rest of us are just visiting.
Mr. Roberts will be with us a long time. That’s why it is essential for a Democratic president to appoint counter-weights to him and to Alito, Scalia and Thomas. Until one of them leaves the court, “right” field starts a few feet off third base. Ms. Sotomayor appears talented and competent, but she is no Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The only solution for this “middling” president is to keep up the pressure on him to do the correct thing. Even then, he’ll make the correct sounds and do what he intends anyway.
Focusing on vulnerable House and Senate figures who can be persuaded or replaced, as Jane has done, seems the smart option.
Arrogant.
Still think he flubbed his part at the inauguration on purpose
I think arrogance is exactly right. He hides it behind a nominally gentlemanly demeanor, but he’s fundamentally arrogant and knows what’s best – if not for us all, for those important to him. I think that’s a selfish misreading of what public service is for.
Roberts is a racist.
Roberts’ opinion regarding the (overly) repetitive nature of the music is consistent with my own, HOWEVER, what a weasel… I didn’t realize White House stationery was so expensive. The president sends letters to the families of every fallen soldier, what is he trying to do, bankrupt the country? /s
Just a point of information: Atriot David Derbes handled this yesterday, ” recognize that I am something of a vox clamans in terris in this area, but enough is enough.
Now, not to be a pedant, but I would have thought that such an attorney as John Roberts, honors graduate of Harvard, would have a better command of Latin. The phrase is vox clamantis in deserto, the voice of one crying out in the desert. What he has is “a voice crying in the lands”. Not quite the same, and not really recognizably Latin.
I don’t think Justice Roberts, for all of his unquestionable intelligence, is quite as scholarly as he would have you or me believe.
David Derbes, optimistic
I’m surprised to find that I actually agree with Roberts on something: the proposed, overly cutesy endorsement of Jackson’s tour was ridiculous, and I really don’t think presidents should waste time with that kind of thing. The White House shouldn’t do PR for entertainers in most cases, I’d make an exception only for benefits.
This has nothing to do with liking or not liking Michael Jackson. He was at his peak in the Reagan days, and put out a couple of great records (though I think Quincy Jones deserves more credit than he got for the quality of Jackson’s best work). He then went downhill and hadn’t done much of note for the last 20 years.
How could it not have been on purpose. It’s not as though the role of the Chief Justice in administering the oath of office is rocket science.
vox – voice, clamans – stealthy or in secret, in – in, terris – the land
stealthy voice in the land, or behind the scenes voice in the land.
It depends on the colloquial meaning of clamans in latin; stealth has a potential negative connotation in english that may not apply in latin.
From Websters: Stealth
the state of being furtive or unobtrusive
again furtive has negative connotations, so the neutral meaning
Unobtrusive voice in the land, or behind the scenes voice in the land?
The use of clamans is troubling. It’s loaded with multiple meanings, many loaded with malice, unlike incognitus (unkonwn), which could have been used.
“vox incognitus in terris” would be completly innocent.
My conclusion? The use of Clamans indicates some interesting ego issues.
I think there could have been a rocket or two concealed in Aretha Franklin’s hat.
If Jackson was inviting himself to the Reagan White House… like the American voters who asked for Reagan, he got what he deserved.
My null hypothesis is that someone as wingnut as Roberts can’t be all that smart because he’s blinded by ideology. My corollary is that he’s plenty smart enough to cloth his ideology in veiled intellectual arguements.
Would she have set them off!
Not smart enough to be a good chief justice, not dumb enough to lose the job (unfortunately).
Slightly OT (if anyone is keeping track): At 1:20 a.m. EST it will be 40 years since the police raid that started the Stonewall Riots.
eCAHNomics June 27th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
15
In response to DWDD @ 9 (show text)
My null hypothesis is that someone as wingnut as Roberts can’t be all that smart because he’s blinded by ideology. My corollary is that he’s plenty smart enough to cloth his ideology in veiled intellectual arguements.
Don’t disagree here completely yet, it seems as though people blinded by ideology have a hard time accepting premises – even proven premises – as being viable. Without being able to consider “Facts” and logical truths, they tend to just not even consider the argument as being something that has value.
It is not that they do not have the mental acuity to consider the argument, they have a prejudice against even accepting that, on certain points, there can BE any argument.
IOW, not so much dumb and as an ideologue whose perceptions will only allow them to see what they can agree with, anything else becomes a subject of first rejection and then elimination – scary people.
Roberts is souless, both in the black music sense and in the sense of having a deep feeling about people. He is a perfect representative of the right, a zero to the needs of people and culture.
Smarts may be a necessary, but certainly not sufficient, condition for chief justice.
Thanks for reminding me of Aretha’s hat. I don’t like Obama at all, but there’s certainly a lot to celebrate about having him as prez. Aretha’s hat is one such thing.
A hat that bows to none.:-)
I agree, he absolutely blew the oath to our first black president on purpose.
His disdain for Michael Jackson only supports my opinion.
Roberts just doesn’t like negroes who don’t know their place.
Agree. Funny how many “smart” people in today’s U.S. of A. reject the Enlightenment. Imagine much worse the U.S. would be if the “Founders” were not children of the Enlightenment.
A hat that will live in the annals of history.
It was a bold fashion statement, only a BIG star could have pulled it off.
And what’s so sad (among many things) is that Roberts was for most of U.S. history, a second class citizen, owing to being R.C. He has no ability to generalize from his underclass to other underclasses.
I’ve know people like that. There was a high level boss at Goldman Sachs, Richard Menschel, who had polio and had to use crutches all his adult life. Rather than showing sympathy for others with disabilities, his attitude was: I overcame mine and was wildly successful, so that is what every other human is expected to do.
Not a very successful human being though.
Your opinion. He loved himself. That’s precisely the gulf I can never figure out how to bridge.
I’ve seen the type myself, disgraceful. Unforturnately, compassion does not seem to be a quality valued on Wall St.
On another note, what I would have given on Inauguration Day, when Roberts “flubbed” the oath, to hear BO say, respectfully, “Take it from the top, Mr. Supreme Justice.”
Niiiiccceee.
Tonight I have to give rare credit to the U.S. gov. I put a pair of shorts with all my cash (9 $20s) in a pocket, in the clothes washer. Came thru just fine.
So, you admit to money laundering?
ROFLMAO. Yes, inadvertantly laundered $$$. Now I’m really in the NSA’s cross hairs, since money laundering and my handle have appeared in the same post. I’ll let you know what happens after they knock on my door. I usually get positively profiled, being a dumpy old blond woman, but somehow, this may not turn out so well. *g*
With $180 you should be able to bribe enough officials to stay out of trouble…
I agree with the tone of the proposed letter from the WH communications office. But Roberts’ job as a junior member of the WH Counsel’s office was not to set the tone for WH communications or policy for the Hollywood President’s relations with other entertainers. It was to assess the legal implications of his correspondence. Mr. Roberts strayed considerable farther afield than that.
That reading seems more consistent with Roberts’ personality. It suggests an easy familiarity with Latin. He didn’t get his Latin wrong: he was riffing, extemporaneously adapting a well-known Latinism by giving it extra, possibly negative meanings. Always the show-off and too clever by half.
It doesn’t bear thinking. It would have been by Founding Fathers with a completely different world view. In fact, they would have been Tories fighting to maintain the close connection with England, not break away from it.
“The tour will do quite well financially by coming to Washington, and there is no need for the President to applaud such enlightened self-interest.”
Except when that “enlightened self interest,” comes to you…….. with cash in hand?
-nods- Yes, like Bork and Yoo he has never met an argument he couldn’t accept and cover with some cloth if the end was in favor of those he serves.
He’s a monster, but he shrinks when compared with Clarence Thomas.