In response to this USA Today op-ed on John Roberts, by GWU law professor Jonathan Turley, my colleague Ronald Rotunda penned the following letter to the editor.

Commentary writer Jonathan Turley complains that reporters, who have combed more than 50,000 pages of documents that relate to the years when Judge John Roberts was a lawyer, cannot draw a definitive portrait of the man.
But Turley, not a journalist but a law professor, tells us he is more gifted. He claims to know, with powers more clairvoyant than any ancient shaman, what lies ahead by looking at 20-year-old documents (“Roberts: The Before and The After,” The Forum, Wednesday).
Turley says that if Roberts is asked about the documents, he “can claim that he was merely representing a client.” Well, he was. Lawyers are supposed to make legal arguments for clients and tell the clients what the courts are likely to do. Roberts’ writings rarely gave policy advice. A law professor, of all people, should know that: We don’t judge lawyers by their clients.
Turley tells us Roberts must be against equal rights for women. But Roberts’ wife is a law partner in a Washington D.C. law firm. Turley criticized Roberts for the Reagan administration’s position on habeas corpus. Yet President Clinton later signed into law the Reagan administration’s position on habeas corpus.
The most important fact that Turley fails to mention is what we do know–Judge Roberts is one of the most qualified candidates in the history of the Supreme Court. His judicial temperament and intellect are praised by his peers and senators from both sides of the aisle. It is the custom, in recent confirmation hearings, to flyspeck the nominee. But we have enough documents that we don’t have to resort to Turley’s tea leaves.

The letter appears in today’s edition.