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Drawing on unprecedented acc ess to the Supreme Court justices themselves and their inner circles, acclaimed ABC News legal correspondent Jan Crawford Greenburg offers an explosive newsbreaking account of one of the most momentous political watersheds in American history. From the series of Republican nominations that proved deeply frustrating to conservatives to the decades of bruising battles that led to the rise of Justices Roberts and Alito, this is the authoritative story of the conservative effort to shift the direction of the high court—a revelatory look at one of the central fronts of America’s culture wars by one of the most widely respected experts on the subject.
More soap opera than legal analysis, but gripping
| Customer Rating:   | Fine popular account of the jostlings, jarrings, and jealousies behind the marble pillars. The reader will discover--mirable dictu!--that the justices and the politicians who put them in place are filled with human sensibilities and foibles.
Greenburg mastered the Woodward techinque of badgering everyone for solo interviews so that each feels they must talk to her in order to cover their, um, flank. Astonishingly, she got nine justices to give interviews, only two (O'Connor and Kennedy) on the record. She also made much use of Justice Blackman's papers which, it seems, contained the internal case memos circulated by the justices.
Three-quarters of the book is an insider account of the selections and confirmations. We learn, for example, that Reagan made a tactical mistake in nominating Scalia before Bork.
Reagan was at the height of his popularity when the first vacancy (after O'Connor) came up. He did not need that muscle to get the prickly but brilliant and affable Scalia (the first Italian-American nominee) confirmed. By the time the second vacancy came, Reagan was beseiged by Iran-Contra, his popularity waning, his Senate majority diminished. The brilliant but haughty Bork ran into a public-relations ambush. Reagan and his people scrambled to put up Douglas Ginsburg, who was done in by youthful marijuana use. Only after this double debacle did Reagan settle for Anthony Kennedy, almost no one's preferred candidate. The error was historically decisive. With the malleable Kennedy in place rather than the steely Bork, the conservatives never consolidated a reliable majority.
Greenburg explains why conservatives were so sharply split on the nomination of Harriet Miers. There are two varieties of conservative in this arena, she explains: "social conservatives" who want to be sure the candidate reaches the "right" result on abortion, affirmative action, and marriage; and "judicial conservatives", who look for a committment to constitutional originalism, and are appalled at the idea of a "right" outcome in any kind of case. When Bush signaled that Miers woud be "right" on the social issues, the judicial conservatives were offended, and it triggered their open revolt.
Disappointingly, only a small part of the book goes into the conference room to reveal the case deliberations. The debates are presented more to illluminate personal dynamics than legal substance.
The biggest revelations concern the advent of Justice Thomas. First, Greenburg disposes of the myth that Thomas was Scalia's puppet. From the start, he went his own way, and more often it was Scalia who changed his vote than the other way round. Contrary to the public perception, Thomas was a forceful conservative voice in the deliberations. The effect was to move O'Connor and later Kennedy, who had initially been reliable conservatives, to the left. Perversely, therefore, Thomas's replacement of the liberal Thurgood Marshall shifted the court leftward.
Greenburg's writing is smooth and crisp and often delightfully vivid (Democratic Senators' efforts to rile the easygoing Sam Alito "was like trying to strike a match off a smooth surface"; by the end of Roberts' and Alito's first year, the outmanned liberal justices were relegated to "shouting from the sidelines that the umpire blew the call").
If you want to know Greenburg's political bias, you will not discern it in this book, which is refreshing. And you don't have to be a lawyer to become absorbed in her narrative. As for the justices themselves and those who aspire to join them, "time and chance happeneth to them all."
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WARNING: CONSERVATIVE BIAS; but still an informative read.
| Customer Rating: | I'm a second-year JD/MBA student at one of the nation's best law and business schools, and I picked up on the conservative bias in the book by about 50 pages in.
I have three reasons so far for saying the book is biased in favor of the right. The book sets out to portray the court's shift rightward, first of all, and focuses on conservative justices, sources of information, and issues.
Second, liberals are usually not mentioned for long, and Greenburg takes care to point out personality flaws in the liberals more than the conservatives. Blackmun, for example, is described as "touchy" at one point for no reason, without it being relevant to the topic, and without Greenburg providing a supporting quotation or evidence. She also spends a lot of time on how big of a disappointment justices like Kennedy, Souter, Blackmun, etc. turned out to be, and even talks about Rehnquist failing to turn the Court sufficiently rightward. Greenburg is supposedly an impartial journalist, but her bias is revealed because of the book's heavy reliance on conservative sources of information.
Thirdly, the book casts Kennedy and O'Connor as "moderates," when both were/have been/are solid conservative votes, except for some high-profile cases on social issues. If you don't believe me, just look up vote counts and see how often Kennedy and O'Connor vote and voted with Rehnquist and company. The only people who would try to label O'Connor and Kennedy moderates would be staunch conservatives, in order to shift the perceived spectrum of American politics rightwards.
This is a book by what I figured must have been a conservative, and my research corroborates it. I'm not saying the book is bad or anything; it still provides a lot of insight into conservative thinking. For example, it gives illuminating looks into the workings of the Justice Department in aiding nomination processes.
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UPDATE: I finished the book, and my view of it as being biased in favor of the right is cemented. Greenburg spent two pages on each of Clinton's nominees to the court; the vast majority of the book is spent on conservatives. The justices on Rehnquist's court are criticized heavily for failing to stop the "liberal agenda." I could go on. |
Interesting stories spoiled by partisan slant
| Customer Rating: | The stories of how the Justices were selected, who else was considered, who made the decisions and how are fascinating. In particular the story of John Roberts is something anyone can relate to if you've had a 'dream job' that you've been close to getting.
The author clearly has much better connections with Republicans than Democrats, as evidenced by the thin coverage of Clinton's appointments. She repays her Republican assistants by employing terminology used only by the most extreme anti-abortion zealots, and by praising Justices like Scalia and Thomas as defenders of the Constitution, then vilifying Justices like Ginsburg or Souter for their adherence to the Constitution's first and fourth ammendments.
Still a great read, and I wish I could read another version of it with a leftward bias to balance this one out. |
The Politics Of Justice
| Customer Rating: | | As my first read on the topic, I found this book extremely captivating, enjoyable to read, and leaving me with wanting more knowledge on the Supreme Court and Constitutional Law, particularly the opinions on some of the more noted cases of the last century. The author seemed to be rather fair and balanced but certainly the focus was more on the conservative nominations and justices. I would have liked to learn more about Ginsburg and Souter's personal and professional lives. The final notes make mention that this work is based on over one hundred interviews including nine supreme court justices, many of their law clerks, and high ranking officials from the White House to federal appeals court judges. Crawford also noted that the book relied heavily on the papers of Justices Marshall and Blackmun. Along with this extensive research and the authors academic and professional background, I believe that this book is a credible source of information. While the focus is on the struggles and conficts surrounding the nominations of the Supreme Court Justices over the past 25 years, the book particularly keys in to the nominations, hearing, and backgrounds of the more conservative justices and most recently, the important nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito that may prove pivotal in changing the direction of the Supreme Court to a more limited role of interpreting law rather than creating it. The political and ideological battles that surround the nominations is quite interesting as the expectations and the stakes involved have become politically and ideologically crucial. Further, the fear and skepticism that a supreme court justice will change his/her opinions once sworn in has become a relevant factor worth vetting the candidates for in a more extreme and embattled fashion than ever. All this makes for extremely good reading. |
Extremely well balanced and very readable
| Customer Rating: | | This book is excellent. I wish all books that touch upon political matters were written so objectively. Sadly, one can often determine an authors political affiliations (and, perhaps, agenda) when reading a book but that is not the case with Ms Greenburg's book on the Supreme Court. She presents a fair story that is very readable. The 'inside' information gleened from interviews and the writings of the Justices makes the book especially interesting. It really adds a warm and human element to the history. I'd strongly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the history and workings of the Court. |
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