I was asked to prepare a legal analysis of how the proposed regulation would violate the 1st Amendment ... Since I shared this legal analysis with government attorneys, my firm, through another partner, filed a lobbying registration under the Lobbying Disclosure Act on which I was listed. This should have been noted on my questionnaire.

Indeed it should have been noted. The omission in question was revealed yesterday in a letter from Supreme Court nominee, John Roberts, to Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont acknowledging that he had registered as a lobbyist for the cosmetics industry in 2001, and had neglected to disclose it, citing some lousy excuse that included the lobbying question failing to "trigger a memory of those meetings."

For all the talk of the nominee's relative youth, his fading memory of distant eras -- 2001 to be specific - does not portend particularly well. Roe v. Who? Was Chief Justice Rehnquist really forced to visit the hospital again? When was the first visit? Was my wife a feminist once? I do not recall supporting that woman's pro-bono, pro-life legal services. Not one time. Never.

Oh my, how quickly the elephants are beginning to forget.