Cary Neeper's Blog: Reviewing World-changing Nonfiction - Posts Tagged "left-and-right"

The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin, New York, Anchor Books, 2007,8.
A legal analyst on CNN, a master storyteller, and a historian is Jeffrey Toobian, staff writer for The New Yorker. He begins by taking us up the magnificent staircase of the new (in 1928) Supreme Court Building, “…a physical manifestation of the American March to justice,” he says.

Our hopes and fears for justice rise and fall as he reviews the personalities, the convictions, and the lives of the justices, the decisions they make, and the opinions they wrote.

Soon we begin to know the justices as brilliant legal experts dealing with personal challenges as well as the major intellectual puzzles that the court demands. How do we interpret the Constitution—as an aging guide for a changing world or as sacred words to be taken literally as expressed in their time?

With a mystery-writer’s skill, Toobin reviews the justices’ thinking, even some changes in their opinions. Who will act as the swing vote now that O’ Conner has retired? Will anyone look to Europe or to worldviews, or is that still off limits? How will a new member change the orientation of the entire court, which was swinging to the right in 2008 when this book was published?

His story has continued into the Obama years with The Oath: The Obama White House and the Court “The Roberts Court has put itself squarely at the center.” Stay tuned. Toobin is worth reading as our current drama unfolds.