I love this article by Paul Craig Roberts on the “true cost” of the Iraq war and think everyone should read it.

But there’s one sentence in this otherwise-outstanding piece to which I take exception.  Roberts writes: “The fascist Republican Federalist Society has put enough federal judges in the judiciary to rule that the president is above the law.”

This is nonsense.

First, let’s tackle the claim that the Federalist Society is “fascist” and “Republican.”

The Federalist Society was formed by law students who were frustrated by the left’s dominance at law schools.  They created the organization to provide a forum for alternative voices: namely, those of conservatives and libertarians.

Here’s how the Federalist Society functions.  There’s a national headquarters in Washington (a red flag, I’ll grant you), there are student chapters in almost every law school, and there are lawyers’ chapters in various cities.

The student and lawyers’ chapters generally do one thing: host lectures and debates.  These events feature speakers ranging all the way from people Roberts would probably call “fascist” to anarcho-capitalist libertarians such as Randy Barnett and Walter Block.   One frequent Federalist speaker is Roberts’s fellow columnist at Antiwar.com, Doug Bandow, whose lecture topics include the American Empire.

Who decides who will speak at these events?  Each chapter’s members.  If the members tend to be more conservative, they may bring in more conservative speakers.  If the members tend to be more libertarian, they may bring in more libertarian speakers.

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