Hotline's Chuck Todd ignored key fact in stating that Bradley, too, was a member of CAP

Written by Rob Morlino

Published

Hotline editor-in-chief Chuck Todd defended Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s membership in the Concerned Alumni of Princeton by saying former Sen. Bill Bradley also was a member. Todd neglected to mention that Bradley resigned his membership in the first year after the organization was formed because of its stance on women and minorities.


In a discussion during the January 13 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, Chuck Todd, editor-in-chief of the National Journal's Hotline weblog, defended Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s professed membership in the Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP) by pointing out that former Sen. Bill Bradley (D-NJ) was himself a member. But what Todd didn't note was that, unlike Alito, Bradley renounced his membership in CAP the year after its formation, calling it, as The Washington Post reported, a right-wing organization that “opposed the admission of women and minorities in the school.”

According to the Daily Princetonian, CAP was formed in 1972 -- the year of Alito's graduation -- and remained in existence into the 1980s. The year after the group's formation, Bradley, a 1965 Princeton graduate, reportedly resigned from his position as a member of the alumni advisory board to the Prospect, CAP's magazine, after the release of its second issue. The Washinton Post reported on January 12: “As a Princeton alumnus and professional basketball player, Bill Bradley in 1973 renounced his membership in Concerned Alumni of Princeton, calling it a 'right wing' organization that opposed the admission of women and minorities to the school.” Alito, by contrast, listed his membership in CAP on his 1985 job application for the position of deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration.

From a discussion that included host Chris Matthews, Todd, and Chris Cillizza, editor of washingtonpost.com's weblog The Fix, on the January 13 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:

MATTHEWS: Calling him a racist because he's a member of some tired-ass yesterday's mossbag Princeton alumni group, that's all he's got on him?

CILLIZZA: Well, like Chuck --

TODD: Bill Bradley was a member of that group.

CILLIZZA: Right.

TODD: Now granted he --

MATTHEWS: -- for a while.

CILLZZA: Yeah.

TODD: -- yeah, I mean, so you can't, look -

MATTHEWS: Thirty-year public adult record, and all you can nail him for is some club he never went to?