CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS SUFFERED SEIZURE BEFORE - WHY WAS PUBLIC NOT TOLD?

So Chief Justice John Roberts suffers a seizure at his vacation home in Maine yesterday. Fortunately Mr. Roberts is okay, the seizure leaving no noticeable effect. But it turns out that this is not his first episode. He apparently had a seizure back in 1993.

Robert Barnes and Michael Shear write in today's The Washington Post that Sen. Arlen Specter, head of the Senate Judiciary Committee during the Roberts confirmation hearings two years ago, says that "senators were told about the previous episode but did not find it serious enough to ask Roberts about."

I don't know which senators were told, but I wish that Sen. Specter had made this information public during the hearings. The public has a right to know of medical problems of the high officers of the government. People like Mr. Roberts have no right of privacy to keep this information from either the congress or the people.

Mr. Roberts, as Chief Justice, should have insisted that the Senate Judiciary Committee bring up his episode publicly. Not having done that, Mr. Roberts should without delay come clean with a public disclosure of his complete medical history.