Unreliable Sources

On Friday, the Judicial Council of the Second Circuit let stand a public apology by U.S. Court of Appeals Circuit Judge Guido Calabresi, without any further sanction, for remarks made by the Judge about President Bush and the Bush Administration. At a June 2004 seminar of the American Constitutional Society, Judge Calabresi compared President Bush's rise to power with that of Hitler and Mussolini, and decried the Bush Administration's “extraordinary level of incompetence at any number of levels.”

Likewise interesting was the Judicial Council's conclusion that there was a lack of evidence of misconduct relating to remarks attributed to Judge Calabresi's wife, at or around the same time. The Associated Press reported that Anne Tyler Calabresi joined a group of 50 others protesting a visit by President Bush to Connecticut. The article notes that Mrs. Calabresi “was protesting on behalf of herself and her husband, 2nd Circuit Judge Guido Calabresi, a Yale graduate and former dean of the Yale School of Law. ‘I'm profoundly worried about the way this country is going,’ she said. ‘And I'm furious about the lies George Bush has told to us again and again. He has led us into a war that is destroying our reputation around the world and creating implacable enemies around the world that we didn't have one year ago.’”

Despite the Associated Press report, there is real doubt that Mrs. Calabresi said these things. In the quote that is attributed to her there isn't even one comparison of President Bush to a fascist dictator....