My husband, Ted, has plowed straight through Jeffrey Toobin’s new book, The Nine, in the past few days — even waking up before dawn several mornings to read it. He is so impressed with Toobin’s reporting, writing and insight into the inner workings of the current Supreme Court, I asked him to write a review for mullentown. If any of you have read it, please post your own views. And because I ALWAYS do what my husband tells me, I’m going to start reading it tonight. Seriously, I am. — Holly

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The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court, by Jeffrey Toobin, Doubleday, 2007.

Jeffrey Toobin covers legal affairs for the New Yorker, a magazine known for terrible titles for its articles yet fascinating reading when you take heart and jump in. In the case of Toobin’s book, the title and the text are equally engaging.

Toobin uses his journalistic skill to reveal the recent history of the Supreme Court. His portraits of the nine justices are certainly judgmental and open to political argument, but by a focus on individual jurists he captures the essence of these few people who are the final word on those matters most important to Americans: abortion, liberty, local government, rights of the accused, and so on.

The Court had until the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist in 2005 and the retirement of Sandra Day O’Connor in 2006 enjoyed 13 years of stability. That stability was based on a truly swing court by the political philosophies of the members. Four justices–William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas made up a predictably conservative wing with Kennedy an occasional gadfly, swinging to the left. The liberal wing–John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer balanced this out. This left O’Connor as the continuous decider-in-the-middle.

And Toobin reserves his highest accolades for O’Connor. He documents how the woman from way out west in Phoenix delighted in persuading one side or the other, and how she often controlled the court. Toobin says her greatest talent was understanding deeply how most Americans viewed the issues before the court and used this to make court decisions politically palatable. Toobin puts it simply: O’Connor has become the most powerful woman in American history.

Of Rehnquist, Toobin portrays the late chief as a well-liked conciliator fixed on the flow of work in the court, fair in distribution of opinion writing to the members, and willing to accept liberal stare decisis (legal precedent) even on stormy issues like Roe v. Wade on abortion. Rehnquist was a frustration to the conservative political movement focused on the appointments of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush to reverse Roe, expand executive power, end racial preferences, speed executions, and welcome religion into the American sphere. Rehnquist was content to be the conductor of the symphony but not to write one.

Toobin is particularly tough on Anonin Scalia. He paints Scalia as a brilliant but obnoxious juror who dominates Court questioning of contending counsel. Scalia also enjoys berating his colleagues on the Court in written opinions and once called some “idiots” in a speech to an outside group. Scalia’s impractical but insistent campaign for “originalism,” or strict interpretation of the Constitution was nonsensical to his mates. And worst of all to conservatives, he helped drive O’Connor and Kennedy to more liberal positions.

Anthony Kennedy makes his mark by his love of flowery language in opinions and international travel. Kennedy traveled frequently through the world meeting with governments and foreign jurists. He brought these thoughts back to the Court and applied international influences in his opinions and votes. As such he became a frequent swing voter to the liberal side.

John Paul Stevens, now senior on the court, is portrayed as a statesman who stabilized the Court. Though appointed by President Gerald Ford as a conservative, he long ago drifted to the liberal side on most issues.

David Souter was also the appointment of a conservative president, George H.W. Bush. Once a great hope for the conservative agenda, Souter’s simplistic and isolated life in New Hampshire led him to eschew politics and vote liberal on many issues. Souter demonstrates how Supreme Court members often move to the opposite side of the political spectrum after appointment.

Clarence Thomas cannot dispel the anger of his contentious appointment in 1991 when Anita Hill accused him of sexual harassment. Though he used continuous affirmative action to move up to the court, he believes it now to be patronizing and displays an 18th-century judicial philosophy by being the most consistently conservative member of the Court.

One myth Toobin breaks is the common perception among Court watchers that Thomas and Scalia are joined at the hip. Thomas deeply resents that description.

Bill Clinton appointee Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a reliable liberal and dedicated to feminist leanings. Her presence on the court had an influence on Sandra Day O’Connor’s liberalism in feminine manners but Ginsburg is identified as a weak member of the court who has limited influence, like Thomas, on opinions.

Stephen Breyer, also appointed by Clinton, is a brilliant if often elite and patrician member of the Court. He’s a wine expert and is even known on occasion to break into a British-like accent in his speech. Breyer can be relied on to influence opinions and writes his own in reliably clear and thoughtful ways. Not known generally was his close friendship on the court with Sandra Day O’Connor and his influence in moving her to the left. Conversely, O’Connor was a very close friend of Scalia’s but Scalia had the opposite impact on Breyer.

After the death of Rehnquist and the resignation of O’Connor, John Roberts and Samuel Alito, Jr. have been appointed. Roberts is a star. Good looking, well-spoken, a fair and thoughtful colleague as Chief, and deeply knowledgeable of the law and Court traditions, Roberts is now in charge of the “Roberts Court.” When asked in his confirmation hearings about his writings about how Roe v. Wade should be reversed, he responded he wrote that as counsel and not as personal opinion. In a clever finesse on abortion questions, he refused to tell the Senate committee where he would stand should the decision be revisited.

Samuel Alito, Jr. is clearly a down the line conservative. Hence the new court arithmetic is 5-4 for the conservatives, with Kennedy often reliably a sixth conservative vote.

Where the Roberts Court will now go is subject to political interpretation. Will Roberts lead the Court to the long-predicted conservative agenda centered mainly on abortion? He, by background of the Court’s members, appears to have the votes.

Toobin reserves energy to point out the Court’s involvement in politics, despite its members’ constant work to present themselves as neutral political beings. He calls the politics of the Court a continuous element- -ably demonstrated in Bush v. Gore, the case that settled the disputed presidential election of 2000. And he really puts that decision under the microscope.

He writes: “The struggle following the election of 2000 to 36 days, and the Court was directly involved for 21 of them. Yet over this brief period, 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.”

Toobin’s final conclusions: The court will always be political as long as human beings serve as justices. Don’t rely on political appearances before membership on the Court to hold up politically. And, to quote Toobin, “… one factor only will determine the future of the Supreme Court: the outcomes of presidential elections.”

… but fear itself.”

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s immortal quote from his 1932 inaugural address is almost the sum total of my knowledge of this amazing man. That, and the regular moments of hero worship my parents–especially my mother–lavished on FDR’s memory as I grew up. My parents were born five days apart in 1927, so while their experiences of the Great Depression are those of young children, it of course, was a period that carved itself deep into their earliest memories. My mother was much worse off in those times than my dad; for one thing, his father never lost his job with the Union Pacific Railroad. My mother, on the other hand, moved at least a dozen times in her first 10 years of life. Several of those upheavals were to live with her unemployed father’s relatives in Los Angeles. I think I cut my teeth listening to her tales of traveling across the Mojave Deseret with no air conditioning, towing a trailer filled with all their worldly possessions, and topping out the speedometer at 35 mph.

I’m raising the legacy of FDR for the purpose of recommending a fantastic new biography. I bought it yesterday and am sitting here at work right now, wishing I were propped up against a shade tree, reading it. It’s titled, simply, “FDR.” The author is Jean Edward Smith, who was a 2002 Pulitzer Prize finalist for a biography on Ulysses S. Grant. Smith also has written a well-received biography on the first U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice, John Marshall.

In his preface to the book, Smith unfolds a map to the 800-plus pages for the reader. He says the question frequently arises as to how Roosevelt, from his old-money, blue-blood, Hudson River clan, developed such an uncanny sense of empathy for the poor and disenfranchised. Smith agrees with most historians that FDR’s lifelong struggle with polio (he was paralyzed from the waist down for half of his presidency) certainly guided his political and social philosophy. But long before he was elected president, Roosevelt had spent extended periods in Warm Springs, Ga., taking mineral springs treatments for his polio. Smith says his exposure to intractable rural poverty in the deep South began shaping his thought process years prior to his life in national politics.

Smith also firmly believes that contrary to some recent criticism, FDR had no evidence of or any involvement in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. He does, however, make a case for Roosevelt’s complicity in the attack. Intelligence reports suggested strongly of a Japanese plot against the U.S. that would force us into World War II, but FDR believed Pearl Harbor to be far too fortified to fall under an invasion. I’m really looking forward to reading a thorough analysis on the topic.

But the main reason I shelled out $35 (!!) for the hardcover (published in May 2007 by Random House) is that I so desperately need to learn about a glimmer of hope that lit the way in one of this country’s darkest eras. For me, and I suspect for millions of other Americans, we are living through similar parallels in this decade. Yes, unemployment is screamingly low. But as we continue to grind on in a baseless and protracted war that fewer people support and growing numbers of young men and women have no desire to fight, I have been yearning for a thorough lesson on what a real leader did in similar and harrowing circumstances.

I won’t pretend to compare the intellect of a GWB to an FDR. A greater apples and oranges comparison couldn’t exist. But isn’t that a part of the mystery so many of us want to figure out? How is it this country could go from a Roosevelt to a Bush Jr. in fewer than 70 years? Is it possible to ever find a leader with the power and humanity of FDR again? Perhaps the stink of big money has corrupted politics to the point we’ll never see a redo of a Roosevelt-like presidency. And as I said to my husband Ted last night, world power has grown so diffuse–due in large part to sweeping technological changes in communication. It’s hard to imagine something like a 2007 Yalta Conference, with a “Big Three” calling all the shots, ever again.

Still, I’m aching to know more about the man whose name in my childhood home was almost on par with Jesus, followed by Jack Kennedy. I’d love to hear from any and all bloggers who can impart memories or knowledge of the Roosevelt legacy to me and others on this space. It’s high time for a glimmer of hope again, isn’t it?

In the news business, we never lack for sources to stuff into our stories.

Take, for instance, those who are willing to help children suck up the expected dark ending to “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” the seventh and final volume of the schoolboy wizard series. The book goes on sale at 12:01 Saturday morning.

The book is said to involve such scary topics as death and dying. For some kids (and thank God we have a specialist in this day and age to sort it all out for them), the book’s affects could be downright debilitating.

Heavens, how did my generation survive the endings of Old Yeller, Where the Red Fern Grows, The Yearling and The Red Pony? But then, maybe we didn’t.

Be strong, children of 2007.

A few days ago, when I was belly aching about maintaining this blog while working full-time, I got incredible responses from people.

Most of you suggested the posts don’t need to be long or involved. One of you advised I periodically toss out a question, and see what kind of discussion evolves/erupts.

Here’s an easy one: What book are you reading at this very moment, and can you/would you recommend it to others? Why? If you are reading several books simultaneously (one of my bad habits, as I tend not to finish one before moving on to another), choose the best and tell us about it.

One brief paragraph should do it.

Not a new idea, this virtual book club notion. Yet who could resist biting on it? Particularly the readers of mullentown, who are the wisest and most literate bunch I know!

I’ll start. Still high from my India binge, I plucked Ted’s aged copy of “The City of Joy” from his office bookshelf this past weekend and set to reading it. It’s a 1985 novelization of French author and journalist Dominique Lapierre’s experience living among the wretchedly poor in Kolkata (Calcutta). Lapierre based his book on a polish priest he met in West Bengal, India. The priest is living in a slum and trying to minister to the poor and sick in a slum called Anandnagar (City of Joy).

I’m not very far along, but the premise is that human beings who by all rights should be miserable and achingly pessimistic about life in this pitiful slum somehow manage their existence quite well, even celebrate it.

I’m not sure how I missed this book or the 1992 film of the same name, starring Patrick Swayze.

I’m hoping “City of Joy” provides me with a deeper understanding of how the beggars, the orphans, the totally disenfranchised of India survive with what they have. I am not looking to somehow “happy face” abject poverty, or to gloss over a government so mired in bureaucracy it barely tends to the needs of its suffering masses. But there is an intriguing human survival skill at work in that country. I want to know it better.

And now, what are you reading and why should I want to read it? Or anyone else?

Warning all! This is a cliche alert:

I’m sorry, but I can’t resist using this hackneyed, overused image. GOP Republican presidential candidate and Utah hero Mitt Romney is the “Where’s Waldo” of the 2008 election.

(I’ve never fallen back on this particular cliche in any of my writing, so I’m allowing myself to use it this once.)

Seriously, Romney keeps popping up here, then there. You turn the page and there he is again, trying to hide among the masses he once played to on social issues like abortion, gay rights, and gun control. But in just the last six months Romney’s philosophies and positions have shifted so wildly you just don’t know where the guy will turn up next. Flip the page, and you’ll see him tap dancing for fundamental Christians, whose support he badly needs if he’s to come out of the 2008 pack alive.

Let’s see. Of late, Romney has turned solidly anti-abortion, even though he catered to moderates and liberals in both parties in getting elected as Massachusets governor in 2002. Back then, he invoked his own mother’s position on female autonomy in family planning. Women have a right to choose, he said. Now he’s changed his mind. Romney says he arrived at his new pro-life position after learning more about the moral implications of cloning. That process has shown him the value of all human life, which means he can no longer honor a pro-choice position.

And now, we have the latest flip-flop: Gun rights. Romney has recently been ga-ga about guns, but had to acknowledge on Sunday he only joined the National Rife Association last August. Twelve years ago, when running for he U.S. Senate against Ted Kennedy, Romney advocated gun control, including a five-day waiting period for weapons sales and a ban on certain assault rifles.

Oops! There he is again, trying to find a place to fit in.

You can read more on the record of Mitt/Waldo here. The Massachusetts media has been tougher on Romney than their Utah counterparts. Part of that is due to big, metro media markets. Politics, and by extension, political coverage, are no games for wimps. There’s no call to be nice and understanding as you often see in Utah press coverage. Basically, it’s like this: If you want to run with the wolves, you can’t pee with the puppies.

And speaking of being nice about Romney, and tolerant of his Mormonism, his battle with the unbendable right-wing evangelical Christian movement in this country is just beginning. Most people in Utah don’t seem to understand this. On radio talk shows, in opinion pieces and letters on newspaper editorial pages, the population here keeps scratching its head wondering why the anti-Romney, anti-Mormon forces can’t just tolerate his differences. You know, live and let live.

If you are part of that camp (and don’t most people like to think of themselves as tolerant of others’ views?), I highly recommend you read this new book: “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America” by Chris Hedges.

Hedges earned a degree from Harvard Divinity School and was a foreign correspondent for The New York Times for two decades.

Hedges’ thesis: That “Christian fascists” are determined to fulfill a widely stated goal of 25 years ago to use mainstream religious denominations, the media and the U.S. government to build a global Christian empire.

In their simple view, Mormons are not Christian. Mormons have not been “saved” by accepting Jesus as their lord, nor do Mormons see this very public act as a required tenet of their faith. Mormons, indeed, have “testimonies” of Christ and share their faith-promoting stories regularly with fellow believers. It’s similar to the “witnessing” of evangelicals, but not nearly the same. Having lived in Southern Baptist-saturated Texas for six years, I can attest to this fact: No amount of spinning and changing and evolving by Romney will budge the fundamental Christians on this issue.

Hedges’ research on this topic is fascinating. There are now, he writes, at least 70 million evangelicals in the U.S., which is about one-quarter of the population. They attend more tha 200,000 evangelical churches. Hedges’ particular focus is on a branch of evangelism knows as “dominionism,” which “seeks to redefine traditional democratic and Christian terms and concepts to fit an ideology that calls on the radical church to take political power.”

Dominionists (they take their name from the Book of Genesis reference in which God gives man “dominion” over all creation) are relatively small in number but growing in power. They control at least six national TV networks, Hedges writes, and nearly all of the country’s 2,000 religious radio stations. They also have taken over the Southern Baptist Convention.

Read the book. It’s downright chilling. If you embrace the historic pluralism of this nation, if you see value in accepting others regardless of their beliefs, if you are downright confused as to why born-again Christians can’t tolerate Romney, this book is for you.

It may help explain why Romney can play all the Waldo he wants, but with this particular — and deeply misguided — religious minority, he’s going nowhere.

Call it a liberal woman thing, but I’m both mystified and wildly amused by recent comments in Salt Lake City sports columns about former Utah Jazz center John Amaechi’s revelation that he is gay.

As revealed in his forthcoming tell-all memoir, Man in the Middle, Amaechi lived a safely closeted life in SLC’s gay community (which he calls the “hippest and gayest” east of San Francisco. Hoo-ah!) during his two-year tenure with the Jazz.

I think this is fascinating. I think the news is groundbreaking. Sure, other professional athletes have come out in the past three or so decades, but only a handful. Breaking barriers in pro sports such as going public with homosexuality is, even in 2007, a big deal. And Amaechi is the first NBA player to do so. That’s quite amazing. And brave.

But I am showing how at least where sports stories are concerned, women are from Venus and men are from Mars. I believe most women who saw this story considered it multi-layered. They probably felt some empathy for Amaechi. Bad enough that he was an awful player, but then he had to conceal his true self from everyone around him, too. Women who appreciate sports and good sports writing (put me, a former Tribune sports editor, in that camp) would want to know more.

With the exception of Phil Miller, lead NBA writer for The Salt Lake Tribune who has covered the Amaechi story fully and professionally for the last two days, local columnists’ treatments of the topic have been unreal.

Check here, here, and here for how three male sports columnists scramble to distance themselves from a topic that still sends shivers down most straight men’s spines.

How do I know that? It’s the universal distancing factor they all fall back on. It’s the fact that these writers can’t ignore an important, even titilating story, but they haven’t figured out how to seriously address it.

They don’t want to come off as — god forbid — homophobic. Hey, no worries there! These guys haven’t run their own mental traps enough to even be accused of homophobia. They aren’t even there yet. It’s easier not to face the issue of gay athletes and what it means in the world of pricey, all-encompassing, macho-drenched professional sports.

So what we get instead from columnists Monson, Luhm, and Rock is this theme of apathy. It’s “who cares if he’s gay,” “this is news?” and “why are we even writing about this?”

But then each spins out 20-plus column inches about why he is writing about this.

Or, in Luhm’s case, a whole treatise on how Amaechi completely sucked while playing for Coach Jerry Sloan and drew too fat a paycheck from Jazz owner Larry H. Miller.

What do we make of that argument? That being the untalented slacker he was, it’s no surprise that Amaechi is gay?

It’s like the old argument about not seeing black when dealing with African-Americans. “I’m color-blind when it comes to race,” white people will say in their efforts at tolerance and inclusion.

But ask a black person if he or she wants to be invisible.

And ask a gay man who might like to be open while playing in the NBA how he wants to be perceived?

Not, I’ll bet, as someone to be ignored, brushed off and discounted with an eye-roll and a “who gives a rat’s ass?”

Anyway, here is a more thorough round-up of what NBA players think of Amaechi’s news. I love the quote from former Utah Ute Mike Doleac, always a smart guy far beyond his ability on the basketball court.