John Roberts is a dick. I was trying to keep an open mind about him and give him the benefit of the doubt, but this was the last straw.
The documents released Thursday recalled the battles of the Reagan era and underscored the breadth of the issues that crossed the desk of Roberts, then a young lawyer in the White House.
Reviewing material for Reagan, he counseled the president against saying AIDS couldn't be transmitted through casual contact, writing that scientists at that time weren't completely certain. ''I would not like to see the President reassuring the public on this point, only to find out he was wrong later,'' he wrote.
At one point, Roberts drafted a graceful letter to the actor James Stewart for Reagan's signature. ''I would normally be delighted to serve on any group chaired by you,'' it began, then went on to explain why White House lawyers didn't want the president to join a school advisory council.
On a more weighty issue, he struggled to define the line that Reagan and other officials should not cross in encouraging private help to the forces opposing the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua.
A memo dated Jan. 21, 1986, said there was no legal problem with Reagan's holding a White House briefing for two groups trying to raise funds. Then, a month later, Roberts warned against getting too close to such groups, toning down letters of commendation drafted for Reagan's signature.
On immigration, he wrote Fred Fielding, White House counsel at the time, in October 1983 that he did not share his opposition to a national ID card. Separately, anticipating a presidential interview with Spanish Today, he wrote. ''I think this audience would be pleased that we are trying to grant legal status to their illegal amigos.''
Roberts reviewed a report that summarized state efforts to combat discrimination against women. ''Many of the reported proposals and efforts are themselves highly objectionable,'' he wrote to Fielding.
As an example, he said a California program ''points to passage of a law requiring the order of layoffs to reflect affirmative action programs and not merely seniority'' -- a position at odds with administration policy.
He referred to a ''staggeringly pernicious law codifying the anti-capitalist notion of `comparable worth,' (as opposed to market value) pay scales.'' Advocates of comparable worth argued that women were victims of discrimination because they were paid less than men working in other jobs that the state had decided were worth the same.
In a third case, Roberts said a Florida measure ''cites a (presumably unconstitutional) proposal to charge women less tuition at state schools, because they have less earning potential.''
In a memo dated Sept. 26, 1983, Roberts cited the administration's objections to a proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.
''Any amendment would ... override the prerogatives of the states and vest the federal judiciary with broader powers in this area, two of the central objections to the ERA,'' Roberts wrote.
His remark about homemakers and lawyers seemed almost a throwaway line in a one-page memo about the Clairol Rising Star Awards and Scholarship Program. The program was designed to honor women who made changes in their lives after age 30 and had made contributions in their new fields.
An administration official nominated an aide who had been a teacher but then became a lawyer. Roberts signed off on the nomination, then wrote: ''Some might question whether encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good, but I suppose that is for the judges to decide.''
More than a decade later, Roberts married an attorney.
