In a story this morning about John Roberts, David Savage and Richard B. Schmitt of the L.A. Times misrepresent the context of a controversial comment by John Roberts.

Savage and Schmitt write:

Roberts also stood behind most of the sharply worded memos he wrote as a young conservative in the Reagan administration.

The memos opposed several civil rights initiatives of the time, and sometimes did so in a mocking tone.

One memo, for example, referred to illegal immigrants as “illegal amigos.”

This really couldn’t be any clearer; Savage and Schmitt are saying that the “illegal amigos” term was used in a memo that opposed a civil rights initiative. The average reader would expect, upon reading the memo, to see something like this:

In short, the Administration should oppose this particular civil rights initiative sought on behalf of our illegal amigos from the southern border. Our brown-skinned buddies will get along just fine without this law.

I haven’t been able to find a copy of the memo itself in a quick search, but there are plenty of descriptions of it on the Web — and the context is very different than that described by Savage and Schmitt. One typical piece says:

[T]he Sept. 30, 1983 memo anticipated a presidential interview with a newspaper called Spanish Today on administration efforts to normalize the status of undocumented aliens. ”I think this audience would be pleased that we are trying to grant legal status to their illegal amigos,” he wrote.

Roberts explained the use of the phrase in the hearings, in response to questioning from Senator Schumer:

SCHUMER: . . . Do you regret some of the inartful phrases you used in those memos, a reference to illegal amigos in one memo?

ROBERTS: Senator, in that particular memo, for example, it was a play on the standard practice of many politicians, including President Reagan. When he was talking to a Hispanic audience he would throw in some language in Spanish. Again, the memos were from me to Fred Fielding. I think Mr. Fielding always found the tone…

SCHUMER: Don’t regret using that term? Could you think that some people might have found it offensive?

ROBERTS: It was meant to convey the notion, again, as I described, that when politicians speak to a particular audience in that language, is that offensive to the audience? It was meant to convey that. It was an issue concerning a particular radio interview. You know, the tone was, I think, generally appropriate for a memo from me to Mr. Fielding, and I know that he never suggested that it was anything other than appropriate.

I think reasonable people can disagree as to whether the use of the phrase in this context was insensitive, or appropriate light-hearted humor. My intent is not to defend Roberts on this point.

The point of my post is to show how the L.A. Times has misrepresented the context of Roberts’s comment in the memo. It seems to me beyond question that the context is quite different from that suggested by Savage and Schmitt: that Roberts had used the phrase mockingly as part of a memo opposing a civil rights initiative.