Just when I thought my disdain for the Justice Department and its prosecutors couldn’t grow any further, I read on Monday morning that David Lat, an assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey, has been masquerading as the pseudonymous female author of “Underneath Their Robes,” a blog devoted to gossip about the federal judiciary. As the unnamed “Article III Groupie,” Lat wrote about judges s/he deemed “hotties” and “divas,” and on several occasions s/he corresponded with actual judges, including noted Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski.
Now, I have nothing against pseudonyms and fictional personalities. In college I wrote a column for a campus newspaper as “Richard Van Falk,” a name that I still use once in awhile for fun. (Although I never masquerade as the character, having killed him off just before one April Fool’s Day; a campus official, thinking Van Falk was real, sent a condolence card.) But when a federal prosecutor masquerades as a fictional person and corresponds with judges as said person, I think it’s reasonable to wonder about the competence of not just Mr. Lat, but of his superiors at the United States Attorney’s office in Newark.
Not that I’m calling for Lat to be fired or punished. He apparently did not engage in any activity that I would consider a crime. But given the DOJ’s propensity for prosecuting people who tell them the slightest lies or recall facts with any inconsistency—witness Martha Stewart and Scooter Libby—where does someone like Lat get off perpetuating a creepy, if perhaps amusing, fraud on the public who read his blog? (The website has been down since this morning’s revelation.)
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Lighten up. He was just having fun, at harm to no one.
I found the site occasionally amusing, but far more disgusting than the pseudonym issue (and whatever sexual issues Mr. Lat may or may not be dealing with) was the blog’s sycophancy toward people in power in the federal judiciary.
We were just talking last night about Nixon, and I was surprised to hear another CR member mention how an inconsistent statement by the former President was the source of the major charges against him. I was surprised to hear that… because with our generation of people today, many are unaware of the realities behind the Democrat assault on President Nixon, and instead believe the prevailing stigma attached to his name.
This relates to your statement, regarding Martha Stewart and Scooter Libby. That was a very good point, about the hypocrisy in this matter.
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