Our friend David Lebedoff is a prominent Minneapolis attorney and accomplished author, most recently of The Uncivil War: How a New Elite Is Destroying Democracy. David writes:

Thank God for a vigilant press.

For those who thought the era of tough and fearless investigative journalism was over, take heart! Two intrepid journalists at the NY Times went after U.S. Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts, and this week they hit pay dirt!

On Wednesday the Times, in a four-column story, went public with the scoop: while a member of lthe White House Counsel office, and still in his 2o’s, Roberts misspelled the word "Havana." And not once, but three times! He spelled it "Havanna" in each case, and if the Times had not looked through thousands of files in the Reagan Presidential Library, Roberts might have gotten away with it.

Even worse: when writing about the rights of Cuban refugees from the Mariel boatlift of 1980, he misspelled Marielitos. The poor fool actually wrote "Marielitoes," and what’s more, notes the Times, he did so "repeatedly."

What would happen if such a man were actually permitted to join our highest court. I mean, today we have Honduran refugees! The mind reels at what this dolt would do to "Tegucigalpa."

So he graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in only three years. And was Managing Editor of the Harvard Law review. Oh yeah, superficially that makes him seem pretty smart. But how do we really know, until trained professionals, by-lined at the Times, have gotten to the bottom of the record. (And if this isn’t the bottom, what is?)

After all, Roberts academic achievements were in the days before spellcheck. And of course there was no Larry Summers running the place, so any spelling or grammatical laxity might have been overlooked. There’s an unconfirmed rumor floating that as a sophomore he placed an apostrophe before the last letter of a word that ended in "s." That shouldn’t be surprising. It’s part of a pattern that’s gradually emerging.

You can run, Roberts, but you can’t hide. Your past will be revealed and reviled. You can bet there’s even worse to come.

Posted by Scott at 05:09 PM  |    |