The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin caught my attention the moment I saw it on the bookshelf. I’ve always been intrigued by the Supreme Court – particularly the fact that their daily work is mostly hidden from public view – so I didn’t hesitate to grab a copy and dive right in.
Keeping in mind that books rarely hold my attention, and that finishing them is even rarer, I was surprised at how well this one held my attention, and was even a page-turner for me.
I will say that the book is very well-researched, very well-written, and is certainly one of the most interesting and intriguing books I’ve read as of late. I will also say that the author writes with a clear liberal bias; however, it’s mild enough to easily ignore, look past, and focus on the facts. While some of the author’s leftist comments border on offensive – for example, his statement that the Second Amendment is “ungrammatical” – for the most part they’re nowhere near as bad as the bias one sees on NBC or CNN, so even conservatives like me can admit that the book is mostly factually correct and isn’t the work of fiction that so many liberal journalists put out.
The focus of the book is that while the Framers intended the Court to be a check and balance against the other two branches of the Federal government, which it is to some degree, it is largely a political arm of the presidents who appoint the individual justices. Each justice reflects the political beliefs of the president who appointed him or her, and with some exceptions, justices generally work to institute those beliefs into law. This is also the reason for the tradition of justices only retiring under the term of a president of the same party, in order to insure that his or her seat is replaced by a new justice with similar beliefs.
Most interesting to me was how justices frequently shift their political leanings as time goes on; particularly those of Justice O’Connor and Justice Kennedy. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, O’Connor made a clear move to the left, while Kennedy obviously moved to the right of center. The end result, of course, is that the makeup of the Court stayed as it was.
Another interesting point the book made is that at any given time, one justice usually “owns” the Court; in other words, the Court is usually made up of 4 conservatives, 4 liberals, and 1 moderate. That moderate is the swing vote, and hence the ultimate decision maker in many decisions. It was this fact of our modern Supreme Court that generated many of the highlights of the book, in the stories of the internal lobbying that goes on in the Court with the liberal and the conservative wing each attempting to win the swing vote over to their respective sides.
O’Conner was the swing vote for most of her career on the Court. Today, it is Kennedy who, as I previously mentioned, usually votes to the right of center, leaving us with a moderately conservative Supreme Court.
And that’s where the author lost me. Instead of simply stating that history factually, he painted a picture of some kind of insidious conservative takeover or revolution when, in reality, the justices appointed merely reflected the party and policies of the president who appointed them. He attacked President Bush (of course) and the so-called conservative machine for appointing conservative justices Roberts and Alito, but gave Clinton a free pass for appointing liberals Breyer and Ginsburg who, in all reality, are more liberal than their counterparts are conservative. He also refers to Justice Thomas as an “extremist” throughout the book, when in reality Thomas is merely a Constitutional Originalist who interprets the Constitution as originally written and intended, a view I lean toward myself.
The author is correct in pointing out the hijacking of the Republican Party by the religious right, something that I’m not personally comfortable with, and that I believe alienates a lot of more libertarian-minded voters like myself.
One thing in particular I enjoyed were all the amusing tidbits about the justices, and some of their eccentricities; for example, William Rehnquist’s one beer and one cigarette at lunch daily, along with his seemingly endless betting pools. Or Justice Kennedy’s decorating and laying out his office specifically to intimidate visitors, in a manner that reminded me of Henry VIII.
In the end, despite the author’s obvious liberal leanings, and his attacks on conservatives, I found the book to be outstanding, highly enjoyable, and highly recommended. Chances are I’ll read this one again!
