Book: The Nine by Jeffrey Toobin

This book is subtitled "Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court." Well, probably not, but still, this book is worth reading. It mostly covers the Rehnquist court. (John Roberts succeeded Rehnquist as Chief Justice after Rehnquist died.) I now actually know the names of all the current justices. I learned that Sandra Day O'Conner was tremendously influential as the swing vote, as was Anthony Kennedy. I learned that Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia are very, very conservative but of totally different temperaments. Mr. Toobin gives many glimpses into the justices, their personalities and their passions for the law and its interpretation, going back to the Constitution, continually refining and defining how much authority individual states should have and how much the federal government should or should not do. Roe v. Wade continues to be a hugely important decision, with the increasingly conservative Republicans always trying to limit and constrain Roe v. Wade, and liberal Democrats continuing to work at keeping it intact.

I came away with awe and envy of Judge John Paul Stevens' intellect, undiminished at his advanced age.

Toobin does state that during the aftermath of the election of 2000, "...the justices displayed all of their worst traits--among them vanity, overconfidence, impatience, arrogance , and simple political partisanship. These three weeks taint an otherwise largely admirable legacy. The justices did almost everything wrong. They embarrassed themselves and the Supreme Court." David Souter was the only justice who was "shattered" by Bush v. Gore. He believed this case "mocked" the tradition "where the independence of the judiciary was the foundation of the rule of law." The other justices just "tried to put Bush v. Gore behind them..."

Justice Stevens said "Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential election, the identity of the loser is pellucidly clear. It is the Nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law." And Toobin goes on to say that one of Stevens's clerks "...prevailed on him, just this once, to give up his favorite word--pellucidly--and substitute the more familiar [word] perfectly, which is how the famous sentence now reads."