I guess only a political junkie would remember when Chuck Schumer tried to smear Chief Justice John Roberts as a racist during his confirmation hearing in 2005 because he once used the word "amigos" in a memo?
Here's the video of the exchange (transcript below):
Click image for video
Senator SCHUMER.
The other thing that has troubled me is the issue of civil rights. Many of us consider racism the Nation’s poison. De Toqueville wrote about that in 1832. And we know you wrote these series of memos 20 to 25 years ago. Some of them are written in a tone that suggests you may have been insensitive to discrimination and hos tile to equal rights. And I have talked to people who might have felt just that. People have said that. So my question is not the substance, but do you regret the tone of some of these memos? Do you regret some of the inartful phrases you used in those memos or reference to ‘‘illegal amigos’’ in one memo?Judge ROBERTS.
Well, Senator, in that particular memo, for example, it was a play on the standard practice of many politicians, including President Reagan, when he was talking to a Hispanic audience, he would throw in some language in Spanish. Again, the memos were from me to Fred Fielding. I think Mr. Fielding always found the tone—Senator SCHUMER.
You don’t regret using that term? Could you think that some people might find it offensive?Judge ROBERTS.
It was meant to convey the notion—again, as I’ve described—that when politicians speak to a particular audience in that language, is that offensive to the audience? It was meant to convey that. It was an issue concerning a particular radio interview.You know, the tone was, I think, generally appropriate for a memo from me to Mr. Fielding, and I know that he never suggested that it was anything other than appropriate.
Senator SCHUMER.
I would have to disagree with you, but we will leave it at that.
A few days later in the confirmation hearing, Schumer returns to the theme:
Let me go to the con side here. First is the question of compassion and humanity. I said on the first days of these hearings it is important to determine not just the quality of your mind, but the fullness of your heart, by which I think a good number of us, at least, on both sides of the aisle really, mean the ability to truly empathize with those who are less fortunate and who often need the protections of the Government and the assistance of the law to have any chance at all. It did not seem much, for instance, to concede that the wording ‘‘illegal amigos’’ was unfortunate, yet you refused to say so. America has moved in the 21st century beyond what Senator Kennedy called ‘‘the cramped view of civil rights professed in the early Reagan administration.’’ But you would not admit now in 2005 that any of those views you argued for in the early ‘80’s were misguided, with the hindsight of history. That is troubling.
Just putting this out there from the memory hole...
-PJ