Presswatch / In Contempt

...Only Jeff Rosen, who had done his researches of Cuomo during the campaign, when Clinton had hailed the governor as his first choice, bothered to inquire into the judicial mind, such as it might be, of Cuomo...

...it never mentioned that the country has been engaged in an endless political argument on this issue, or that the Civil Rights Act of 1964, enacted two years after White went on the Court, explicitly opposed group preferences...

...At least Biskupic's sins were ones of omission...

...Biskupic, having characterized the Warren Court and, to a lesser degree, the Burger Court as liberal, also said the Rehnquist Court "not only has been traditionally conservative but also has become more activist, willing to overturn precedent...

...But U.S...

...The only liberal to express any skepticism about Clinton as a deep legal thinker was the New Republic's Jeff Rosen, who detected within Clinton's administration "an apparent lack of interest in legal philosophy...

...They wanted to reward their friends by making them U.S...

...It could just as easily have written that White has sought to reduce government hostility toward religion...

...attorney posts...

...The second point was that Democratic senators had become restless...

...But a reporter could at least insert the word "judicial" before the political label—as in judicial liberal or judicial conservative—thus indicating that a more complex phenomenon is at work...

...The Los Angeles Times advised that White's retirement "could mark the start of a gradual shift toward the left," the Wall Street Journal that it gave the president "a chance to return [the] Court to the center or tilt it his way," and the CBS Evening News that it meant "the voting power of the far [far!] right will be greatly undercut...

...Credit Clinton's spin doctors for at least a portion of this journalistic suspension of disbelief...

...By law the attorney general can appoint someone for 120 days, whereupon a federal district judge may name someone else for another 120 days...

...Newsweek's, on the other hand, seemed to derive from willful ignorance...

...attorneys...

...Of course, the president himself at any time may nominate his choices for the ninety-three jobs, who must then be confirmed by the Senate...

...But why is it activist to overturn a case that was wrongly decided in the first place...

...But given the administration's slow personnel pace, no one should bet that Clinton will fill the vacancies soon...

...Reno was carrying out a Clinton order...

...Patrick Moynihan moved within a week of Reno's action to announce his choices...

...Barrett pointed out that Justice White has voted to uphold congressionally mandated affirmative action but has opposed local minority set-aside programs...

...The reporter, Stephen Labaton, ended by quoting his spinner, conventionally identified as a White House official...

...Newsweek also said, "On privacy, White has voted for a heavy government hand...

...As the Journal's Paul Barrett observed, such political labeling can be misleading...

...News & World Report wrote that in replacing White Clinton must choose between two (judicial) liberalisms: that which reigned when he was a student at the Yale Law School and "the older brand"—i.e., White's—that is "deferential to the actions of legislators...

...This year, thanks to the president's abrupt decision to clean house, some U.S...

...Not so...

...Newsweek thus implied that a top civil rights enforcer has to support compensatory preferences...

...White's contrasting votes owe to the different sources of law at issue in these cases, and in any given case the job of the Court is to interpret and apply the law...

...In New York, incidentally, the famously impatient Sen...

...Does that make him conservative or liberal...

...the one on minority enterprises, for example, explicitly recommends "race-conscious" set-asides for minority-run businesses...

...And because he has a lawyer wife who also once taught law, and she will help him...

...He] is someone who can read opinions for himself, someone who stayed up late reading the opinions of John Marshall and wants to select a Justice whose opinions, like those of Marshall, withstand the test of time...

...No one bothered to ask whether Clinton even has a judicial philosophy...

...These attorneys are appointed by the president, and can be removed at his discretion...

...A consistent assumption of journalists has been that Clinton will do a better job picking White's replacement than Ronald Reagan or George Bush did in choosing their justices...

...Again, the press was insufficiently curious...

...historically, senators of the incumbent president's party have looked on these jobs as theirs to give away...

...Before withdrawing from consideration in April, New York Governor Mario Cuomo had been Clinton's leading candidate for the Court...

...I read through most of the reports and cart testify to their conventional liberalism...

...attorney offices could have four different bosses...

...C linton's new attorney general presumably will be among those who advise him on his Supreme Court selections...

...A reader of these stories could easily conclude that Clinton would make the courts less conservative regardless of which liberalism he appointed to the court...

...They knew that it had taken Bill Clinton a long time to land an attorney general, and were wondering how long it would take him to get around to naming the people they wanted to the U.S...

...Is it not possible that Clinton will use his appointment power less to advance a legal philosophy than to please liberal interest groups (by picking the right kind of woman or minority) or to gratify some region of the nation politically key to him in the 1996 election...

...White, the magazine went on to say, "has accommodated a gradual dismantling of the wall between church and state...

...Legal Times was the first to report—and the only press organ to report thoroughly on—Reno's use of Dade County grand juries to investigate not just specific crimes but government institutions and social conditions...

...Attorneys in New York" was the headline in the diversity-conscious New York Times, atop a story that conveniently included photos of both so that readers could see the woman was white and the black was not a woman: no "two-fers" here...

...Given this circumstance, you might think reporters would have looked up his legal writings...

...Because Bill is a lawyer who once taught constitutional law (at the University of Arkansas Law School...

...I know the argument for using conventional political terms—in effect, that consumers of journalism are too dumb to absorb anything more challenging...

...One of Reno's first actions as attorney general was to request the immediate resignations of the nation's ninety-three U.S...

...Where was that vaunted press skepticism...

...Biskupic did notexplain that there are different kinds of judicial conservatism—one especially deferential to the text and history of the Constitution, another more deferential to the decisions of the Court, even if wrongly decided...

...But the Times failed to make two points clear...

...According to a "news analysis" by Joan Biskupic,the Washington Post's Supreme Court reporter, (judicial) liberalism means interpreting individual rights more broadly and preferring government authority less lthan White has...

...attorneys...

...Finally, the press was afflicted with what might be called Cuomo Incuriosity...

...It could just as easily have written that White has voted to allow the American people themselves to settle matters like abortion through the elective branches...

...And on Janet Reno, the state attorney for Dade County at the time of her selection, the press also was less than diligent...

...A Woman and a Black Proposed as U.S...

...Journalists routinely join in lamenting the "politicization" of the Supreme Court, but labeling justices right or left only adds to the problem...

...Rosen managed to get the governor's attention, which led to an interview that usefully probed how Cuomo viewed the task of judging...

...Her work in this area should have interested a generally listless press...

...What you have to understand [and Labaton got the message] is that unlike his recent predecessors, Clinton is a lawyer and he has taught constitutional law...

...Here is how the magazine described White's career: "Although White was once the Justice Department's top civil rights enforcer under Robert F. Kennedy, he opposes 'group preferences'—favoring women or minorities—to overcome the effects of past discrimination...

...Reporters redundantly noted these facts, as if they guaranteed that Clinton would do a great job at advancing his legal philosophy through his Supreme Court choice...

...The first was just what a managerial nightmare could lie ahead for the administration...

...Print reporters at times use headlines and leads to explain their political labels, but the journalism on the White story was less than helpful...

...A New York Times story on Clinton's search for a new justice duly celebrated how different Clinton is from "his recent predecessors," how he has "a strong intellectual interest in the Court and its workings," and how involved he is in selecting White's successor...

...Renohad those grand juries investigating, among other things, homelessness, child welfare, AIDS, public housing, school dropouts, and the development of minority enterprises...

...This was the underlying, and underreported, political story: Clinton had to do something emphatic and public to please Senate Democrats...

...Some of the press duly noted that, as the New York Times put it, new administrations traditionally effect this changeover not all at once but gradually...

...Reno did nothing wrong in using grand juries as she did—Florida law allows that—but from my reporting I learned she was more aggressive than most state attorneys in pursuing social policy ends...