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Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday
Format: Bargain Price
Bestselling author Jeffrey Toobin takes you into the chambers of the most important—and secret—legal body in our country, the Supreme Court, and reveals the complex dynamic among the nine people who decide the law of the land.
Just in time for the 2008 presidential election—where the future of the Court will be at stake—Toobin reveals an institution at a moment of transition, when decades of conservative disgust with the Court have finally produced a conservative majority, with major changes in store on such issues as abortion, civil rights, presidential power, and church-state relations.
Based on exclusive interviews with justices themselves, The Nine tells the story of the Court through personalities—from Anthony Kennedy's overwhelming sense of self-importance to Clarence Thomas's well-tended grievances against his critics to David Souter's odd nineteenth-century lifestyle. There is also, for the first time, the full behind-the-scenes story of Bush v. Gore—and Sandra Day O'Connor's fateful breach with George W. Bush, the president she helped place in office.
The Nine is the book bestselling author Jeffrey Toobin was born to write. A CNN senior legal analyst and New Yorker staff writer, no one is more superbly qualified to profile the nine justices.
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| A Political Hack....afraid of any political viewpoint other than his own! |
| Customer Rating: 1 out of 5 |
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A transparent and miserable reflection on the Supreme Court Justices as it relates to his liberal political agenda. This is not an intellectual account, but a pitiful attempt to sway his readers to vote for a liberal ticket. Balance be damned...he is a journalist, not a "writer".
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| how five of nine unelected old codgers control huge swathes of american public policy |
| Customer Rating: 3 out of 5 |
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I'm reviewing the Nine together with Supreme Conflict, as each bears in its subject on the other, and the review of one is a good compare/contrast exercise with the other.
The Nine does a fairly good job of living up to its billing as 'inside' the world of the Supreme Court. Whether this world is a 'secret' one or not is a bit of hype, however. More appropriately, it would be the 'not widely known or cared about world', but that isn't as sexy a way of putting the idea.
Toobin gives us a strong sense of what these justices are 'about' with telling details. For example, Rhenquist's odd and idiosyncratic geekiness at having his robes adorned like those in a musical of which he was fond; Thomas's love of NASCAR and RV'ing, or Kennedy's grand ego, reflected in the adornment of his office.
These are not self-aware people. They fancy themselves by and large as learned in the ways of the law, but ultimately they were chosen for their political views. When they need to give an election to the Republicans for no good legal reason, as in Bush v. Gore, they unhesitatingly lower themselves to the occasion. Interestingly, such politics laying bare the 'objectivity' of the law unnerved Souter, in particular.
The author also does a good job of exploring cases like Bush v. Gore, or Webster, and uses them to illustrate the Court's workings and tendencies. He is particularly good on showing how the cases evolve over time as justices' change their minds (like O'Connor shifting to the 'left') or how the addition of the two conservative justices Alito and Roberts stealthily shift the law without the hubbub of overruling established precedent.
This is a good summary of inner workings of court and transformations of recent history. I would have appreciated even more humanizing minutiae about daily life on the Court, like O'Connor's aerobic routine.
In contrast to Toobin's genial treatment of the subject is Jan Crawford Greenburg's unfortunate Supreme Conflict. This book is turgid and bogged down in uninteresting or redundant detail--unfortunately, her lawyer background wins out over her journalistic background in many instances. For example, there are a couple sentences which state "when Blackmun read her opinion, he was pleased to see her reprimand Thomas. 'Well, good for her,' he wrote on the first page of her draft concurring opinion." So you have two sentences here where only one would be necessary to get he point across--a small example, but when you multiply that kind of writing over hundreds of pages the weight adds up like 'fun size' Butterfinger on a fat ass. This is often too much of the same or uninteresting detail--I could have skipped every other sentence and still gotten 90% of the book's substance.
She could have used a better editor. For example, Souter's confirmation process is often covered in exhaustive detail, but, oddly, Thomas's gets barely a page of very summary detail. You would think that in a book about the 'supreme conflict' of the struggle for control of the Court that more detail about the Thomas process--easily the most controversial confirmation in recent history-- would be critical. In another example, a chapter about Thomas veers off oddly into the relationship between Souter and Scalia.
The above points to the largest problem with the book: where's the beef in this "Supreme Conflict?" We get oddly forshortened accounts of the confirmation process, as described above, which is one site of the contest for the direction of the Court, and also of key incidents within the Court, for example, with Bush v. Gore, which only occupies four substantive pages of material. This book just doesn't live up to the thesis suggested in its title.
"Supreme Conflict" in fact avoids controversy and is often a fawning account, as can be seen in the pages and pages of her acknowledgements (Toobin's is a respectable paragraph) in which she gushes about 'profound' gratitude and being 'incredibly' fortunate--no noun without an glowing adjective here. The problem is that she is really too close to official sources, not searching enough in 'psycho-history' and handles any unflattering or handles idiosyncratic details, especially of the powerful conservatives in ascendancy, with extreme care. (Along with the acknowledgements, the bookflap describing the contents inside--using words like titanic, gargantuan, brilliant, unvarnished, seething, bruising, masterpiece, etc.--is the one of the most purple--dare I say tumescent--of the year. It's too bad they don't give awards for this sort of thing.)
Finally,her account is also curiously incomplete in key details--again a better editor would have helped. For example, Toobin illustrates O'Connor's resignation and her letter to Bush as a polite but direct shot against incursions by the executive that had recently been made undermining the separation of powers and the rule of law, e.g. at Guantanamo. This relationship or view is lost in Greenburg's story.
She does catch some interchanges between the justices, particularly in conference and in vote-switching, or the 'leader/follower relationship' between Scalia and Thomas, in more detail than Toobin. The occasional story she does toss in, for example Souter needing to bum funds to make a trip to D.C., is amusing and insightful. She's stronger on the process of confirmation, e.g. the complete bumbling by the conservative brain trust in the selection of Souter, and the involvement of the other political branches, as befits the theme of the 'struggle for control.'
In broad detail both books cover similar ground--the beef that conservatives have with the Warren Court, the influence of public opinion on the judges and their political radar, the relationships of the justices to each other, etc. However, if you are just going to pick one of these, the Nine is going to give you as much 'inside' stuff as the other by and large, as well as cover though in not as great detail the 'struggle' for control, and do so in a more engaging manner. Where the Nine is an affable conversationalist, Supreme Conflict speaks grey officialese. Except for the book flap.
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| A stunner |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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I did something with this book that I have never done before. As soon as I finished the last page I turned back to the first page and read the entire book over again. Exceptional writing, exceptional presentation of the people and the facts.
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| I know why I don't watch cable news... |
| Customer Rating: 3 out of 5 |
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As a person with some experience in journalism, this book just drives home the point for me why I don't watch cable news. It's not that the book is critical of conservatives (which it is) or that it is hyperbolic in its praise of liberals (again, it is)...the problem is that I could care less what Jeffrey Toobin thinks. Isn't the job of the news media to engage us to make our own decisions? I can decide for myself based on the facts that Clarence Thomas is conservative, and a bit extreme. I can also decide for myself that Bill Clinton had an "admirable" presidency. I can do both of these things based on the facts, without the running commentary of Mr. Toobin. I just hate the need of journalists to insert their opinions into a matter. "Reporters" seem to have forgotten that they report facts and have slipped over into editorializing every story. I would have liked the book a lot more had my intelligence not been insulted at every turn with Mr. Toobin's opinions.
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| Do you like your history leaning to the left? |
| Customer Rating: 2 out of 5 |
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The first half of this book is excellent; I read to the middle in almost one day. I could handle the occasional comment about Bush or the conservative efforts to remake the court (unlike the left's, of course) and keep going but by the second half, which begins with the Supremes ruling on Bush vs Gore, I started getting tired of Toobin's editoral remarks. Relentless and derogatory, they began to color my appreciation for his research and his writing. Sentences like "In Europe, from the moment he took office, George W. Bush was disdained for his unilateralist approach to foreign policy, his contempt for international institutions, and, especially, his cowboy swagger."
I guess that's why Bush labored to free Iraq's people from the tyranny of a killer despot? Or why he sent billions in aid funds to Africa? His 'contempt' for everything non-American must explain those actions, right?
He belittles Clarence Thomas for his "extreme views"" (a phrase he uses three times in two pages) and quotes the justice in a disbelieving way saying he thinks "'the right to keep and bear arms' is...'a personal right.'" Gasp! That's incredible!!! Rehnquist, O'Connor, and especially Scalia are portrayed in an equally unflattering light.
The book is well-written and entertaining but buyer beware; this version of history comes with a large dose of liberalism sprinkled as fact.
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