Roberts to Reagan: Don’t laud Michael Jackson or you’ll have to praise Prince

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan was warned by a young White House associate counsel named John Roberts against sending a letter of commendation to singer Michael Jackson, who died yesterday. One reason: Praising the King of Pop would set a precedent, requiring the president to also praise a “newcomer who goes by the name ‘Prince.’” But Roberts — now the nation’s Chief Justice — didn’t hold himself to that standard when he penned a high court dissent last year that quoted another Minnesota-born musician: Bob Dylan.

Roberts’ advice to Reagan included this:

It is also important to consider the precedent that would be set by such a letter. In today’s [Washington] Post there were already reports that some youngsters were turning away from Mr. Jackson in favor of a newcomer who goes by the name “Prince,” and is apparently planning a Washington concert. Will he receive a Presidential letter? How will we decide which performers do and which do not?

“The whole thing’s a scream,” observes David Weigel at our sister site, The Washington Independent. It’s well worth reading the Post’s full account for other delicious tidbits. For example, while dissing Jackson, Roberts judged Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” tour to be commendably “patriotic” —  suggesting that Roberts completely missed the album’s undercurrent of cynicism and doubt about the country under Reagan.

Strange that he would miss that, considering that he’s apparently a close reader of Springsteen’s hero, Dylan. In what’s thought to be the first occasion on which pop music invaded the sacrosanct realm of high court opinions, Roberts cited a Dylan lyric in an opinion last June:

The absence of any right to the substantive recovery means that respondents cannot benefit from the judgment they seek and thus lack Article III standing. “When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.” Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone, on Highway 61 Revisited (Columbia Records 1965).

Roberts’ predecessor as chief justice, William Rehnquist, liked light-opera legends Gilbert and Sullivan so much so that he not only quoted them in opinions but added fussy accessories to his judicial robes that looked like knock-offs from Gilbert and Sullivan costumes.

No word on whether Roberts wears a mid-’80s-style Springsteen bandana tied around his head while crafting opinions in chambers. Actually, Prince has provided a more judicial look in some phases of his career.

And Prince also gets political from time to time, most recently working federal bailouts and North Minneapolis’ progress (or lack thereof) into a jam on his latest CD. Indeed, at the time Roberts began writing his Jackson briefs, “Purple Rain” was days away from being released (the release date was June 25, 1984 — 25 years to the day before Jackson’s death) so youngsters would still have been digging earlier songs off his previous record, “Controversy”, including one called “Annie Christian” that mentions Reagan:

Annie Christian was a whore always looking for some fun
being good was such a bore, so she bought a gun
she killed John Lennon, shot him down cold
she tried to kill Reagan, everybody say gun control (gun control!)

Here’s a video of Prince, hand in pocket, performing a punked-up version of “Annie Christian” at the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 21, 1981.