i think the white house is using all its loyalty chits on rove right now...

randy -- you're teaching at GULC next semester?

Is this the Miranda who was fired by Orin Hatch for being a thief? Why respect and propagate his opinion?

I'm at a loss as to why providing correct information is an insult to the Federalist Society? I am a Federalist Society student chapter president, and I don't think the Federalist Society was harmed by the White House correcting inaccurate stories, nor do I think that the legitimized an attack on us. People who think the Fed-Soc is some sort of conservative cabal are lunatics and anyone who is somewhat informed knows that they are lunatics, regardless of what the White House says or doesn't say.

I'm at a loss as to why providing correct information is an insult to the Federalist Society?

It's kind of a Seinfeldian Not That There's Anything Wrong With That.

When someone accuses you of being X, and you fervently deny it, you make the issue whether it's true rather than whether it's a negative.

Aardvark--As long as you promise not to show anyone the secret handshake, we can agree to disagree about the conservative cabal. ;-)

It isn’t hard to become a member of the Federalist Society. Anyone can join. People claim that it is prestigious, but anyone – even people without law degrees can join. It would be more prestigious if, say, they required proof of bar membership, and at least 20 appellate cases argued. But they just want warm bodies. Because they let anyone in (regardless of whether they have ever even been considered for a professorship), their meetings usually degenerate into a bunch of platitudes and people without jobs trying to get them.

ACS does not have minimum standards either. But they don’t call themselves “prestigious” or anything like that.

Miranda is not a new or young lawyer. He was in practice for a number of years before moving the Senate staff.

Since when does poisoning the well constitute a valid reason not to listen to the advice of another? Isn't it the message, not the messenger that matters? Hm...Alas for Rosencrantz &the Guildguy...

I couldn't care less what Miranda thinks about the FedSoc. What struck me as interesting about Miranda's column is how transparently he seems to be kissing up to Orrin Hatch, the guy who fired him. Anybody know if there's a subtext here? More about this here.

Personally, I think the most interesting thing, by far, about the Miranda incident is what he found in those Democratic documents. One could argue that Democrats were acting most improperly, if not unethically.

Now, one can argue tht what Miranda did was unethical, as some here do, and I am all right with that. Yet does and should this concern about ethics extend to lawyers who confidentiallly release to favored reporters sensitive documents or information — say, about investigations they conducting? Was it okay for Ken Starr to leak info from his probe of Clinton? Or whichever lawyer is leaking info from the Plame investigation? I think not.

The point is, reasonable people seems to think such action is unethical in some situations but not others. And what determines how that judgment is formed? Well, it usually depends on the information that is leaked.

Similarly, government officials leak classified or sensitve information all the time, especially civil-service-protected officials who are members of another party and disagree with what the party in power is doing. Is this okay and ethical?

I guess, as a former president might have said, it all depends. Context, not image, is everything. Maybe the leaker is doing a great public service, or maybe not.

Noam Scheiber has a different POV: John Roberts keeps insisting that he's not a member, even though he's clearly close to the Society.
http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml?pid=2737


A nice piece on Miranda's reinvention of himself as pundit:
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050725&s=crowley072505

For Miranda's lengthy, petulant effort to defend himself (and smear Orrin Hatch and others), see this article he wrote for the conservative Texas Review of Law &Politics.

I dunno, Public Defender. Last I checked, Congress was a hotbed of partisan activity. In fact, it has been that way for, oh, two centuries. Clearly, what goes on in Congress is not the same as what goes on in your law office, regardless of whether an opposing counsel is visiting.

In a nicer, more perfect world, no one would snoop or act in similar underhanded ways. Yet it seems to happen rather frequently, and as I noted, criticism tends of such behavior tends to be situational.

Consider the recent Schiavo controversy. A counsel to GOP Senator Mel Martinez wrote a memo to his boss suggesting how the Republicans could benefit publicly from the case. Martinez, not having read the memo, inadvertently passed it on to Democratic Sen. Harkin.

Did Harkin question Martinez about the memo for clarification -- at which point Martinez could have disavowed his counsel's statement, and the two men privately could have let the matter drop?

Uh uh. Harkin passed the memo on to reporters and suggested to them that the memo was being handed around to top Republicans, which proved to be untrue. Still, it became a fairly big story and Democrats tried to use the manufacturered controversy to damage the GOP.

In my perfect world, Harkin would have acted more ethically and gentlemanly. Obviously, Martinez did not mean for him to see that part of the memo. But Harkin thought it was fair game since the memo came into his possession. I could easily draw a parallel to the Miranda situation.

Then, of course, we had several well-known examples of Democrats gaining possession of illegally taped conversations of GOP lawmakers, which were released to the press and the public. I dont remember a big outcry among Democrats (or lawyers) about the behavior of fellow lawmakers.

Color me a skeptic then. I suspect if the situation were reversed, someone might emerge as a hero. Let's say Miranda was a liberal Democrat. Let's say he found memos indicating a secret GOP plan to work closely with socially conservative groups to come up with a 'stealth' Supreme Court candidate who would almost assuredly vote to overturn Roe v Wade.

In such a case, do you really believe people here who are critical of Miranda would still be talking about him in such a way? I am dubious. The focus of the press and the Democrats would be on what those nasty Republicans are doing.

I wish that were not so. But I've been living in DC too long, and walking the halls of Congress too much, to believe otherwise. In this city, it's all about whose ox is getting gored. Ethics, as I said before, is usually situational.

Looking at my last post, I realized I was imprecise.

Miranda did at least two things wrong: He rifled through files, and he disclosed the contents.

Harkin did only one of those two things wrong: He disclosed the contents of an inadvertantly disclosed memorandum.

As to congressmen disclosing the contents of taped conversations, were any of them lawyers? One point of my posts is that despite all the jokes, lawyers must be held to a higher standard than non-lawyer politicians. Hatch understands this. Harkin apparently doesn't. Miranda defiantly refuses to live up to the standards of his profession.