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.”

OK, all you Mullentown regulars and vagrants who only happen to squat here every few days, tell me — again, and with your best descriptive power — why not Hillary Clinton for president?

It isn’t a loaded or rhetorical question. I want a good answer. I wrote here a couple of weeks back that I was about an inch away from supporting Clinton. I’m getting closer.

Well sure, who wouldn’t love to see Al Gore jump in? But as of today, candidates have three weeks in which to register for the New Hampshire primary. I just can’t see Gore doing this. And I’m thinking the more that people float around and sign petitions to convince him he should run, well, the more ridiculous and divided Democrats look at a pivotal point in their taking back this country and helping to mold its precarious future.

Clinton has a plan to offer a “baby bond” to help finance a college education for every child born in the U.S. She’s back on the health care for all proposal, though she’s backed off from her original, doomed blueprint from 1993-94. I’m sensing hope in this woman’s campaign, and she has chutzpah. We’ve had so little of both for so many years.

And did I mention Clinton has money? A lot of liberals sniff at the notion that she’s awash in campaign money — as if that quality on its own is some kind of moral flaw. But just what does it take to win right now in this country, darlings?

Money. More money than God. Mitt Romney has it, and don’t think that he or Rudy won’t use up every cent of what they’ve raised in trying to beat Clinton if she gets the nomination. The more cash she stockpiles the better.

And finally, I’d be disingenuous if not straight-out remiss, by not claiming it’s way past time we had a female president. The fact that she’s eminently qualified, bright, articulate, ambitious and can throw it right back at the stodgy white male power structure that fuels this country is a terrific bonus. I’ll tell you what: I saw so much sexism — subtle and not even at all subtle sexism — in my stepdaughter’s run for Salt Lake City mayor that I’ve become all about supporting women in politics. Call it my new religion. Women, more women in politics. Everywhere, more women please.

I’d almost say after the negativity I saw directed at Jenny Wilson from the public, the media and her opponents’ camps that gender alone is reason enough to support Hillary. But then you would all paint me as shallow.

This isn’t just any woman. This is Hillary Clinton. Find me any other Democrat parading on the campaign runway right now who can match her for experience and real-world politik. Betcha can’t.

Let me know, bloggers. I only have one caveat: You cannot respond to my challenge by writing “I like Hillary, too. But she’s unelectable.” That won’t fly here. Tell me why she isn’t, and then defend it. Or, you can always look at the world a bit optimistically, and tell us why she SHOULD be elected president, and how you’ll help see that it happens.

The phones are open, friends. Ready, get set, POST!

Consider, the 2007 Nobel Prize Trifecta:

(According to me, anyway)

Peace: The real U.S. president of 2000, Al Gore (with the United Nations).

Literature: Amazing British author Doris Lessing, whose writing changed my life (for the better).

Science/Medicine: University of Utah’s Mario Capecci (shared with Oliver Smithies, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Sir Martin Evans, of Cardiff University in Wales.

I consider it the best list in ages. And I’m still wagering Gore will not run for president. But what do you all think?

Check it
out:

Don’t get me wrong. It’s lousy that someone did this. But what I like is that the photographer landed right there, right then.

And that our Web master at City Weekly, Bill Frost, picked up on the subtle grammar challenge at hand.

Life in the City.

Oh great.

That inch-deep acting talent Lindsay Lohan has announced, fresh from her stint in pricey drug rehab at The Cirque Lodge in Sundance, her decision to put down roots in Utah.

The slow pace and wholesome environment here will apparently help Lindsay — who apologizes to her fans, “especially the younger fans” for making some bad choices in the past few years.

No indication in the published stories where she’ll be living. Park City? Too much nose candy temptation. Utah County? Plenty of modest formal gowns to choose from for the next Academy Awards, but with Oxycontin and Prozac, Paxil, Wellbutrin, Xanax and Lexapro (did I leave one out?) flowing freely to obsessive and overtaxed Mormon moms, it’s not exactly a safe haven for your standard spoiled Hollywood drug addict is it?

Maybe she can be a tour guide at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

I wish she’d just move on.

Hmm. Not to get too caught up in this growing “Al Gore in 2008″cyclone here on mullentown, but none other than Christopher Hitchens is making a thoughtful pitch for His Globalness as a serious Democratic presidential candidate here.

For all the reasons I wrote yesterday that Gore shouldn’t or won’t run, Hitchens suggests he should. Hitchens also predicts Gore will win the Nobel Peace Prize next month in Oslo. (Can’t wait to hear the right-wing retort to that if it happens: What does trumpeting a warning about global warming have to with peace for hell’s sake?)

Anyway, it’s a good read. It’ll get your brain cells scurrying around, if nothing else.

OK. OK. I’ve been swamped. Been ignoring this blog again. And some of the most loyal posters on this blog have spoken. They want to discuss the mess surrounding Larry Craig, the U.S. Republican senator from our neighbor to the north and the growing sex scandal enveloping him.

I can’t say I’m surprised. The Idaho Statesman has been chasing down a story about Craig and his long-rumored latent homosexuality for nearly a year. The story has been referred to often in the past couple of days, but in case you missed it, go here. I think the Statesman story nails the issue (so to speak), and it’s a good example of how news outlets frequently have the germ of a story for a long time before an event like Craig’s attempt at a public restroom tryst with a Minneapolis undercover cop breaks and allows them to publish. The Statesman got the goods; good on them. Sometimes the gods of breaking news just smile down on your newspaper and grant you an opportunity to finally tell the full story. So it was with Craig, and news that pretty much proves the gay orientation he has been denying for so long — even as late as yesterday.

So. The man is 62, an ultra-conservative in an ultra-conservative state who has built a Senate career largely on morals crusading. Never seen this plot line before, have we? I’m not sure what I could add. That the Craig scandal is deeply creepy? That, as Mitt Romney, whom Craig was working for in Idaho, says, it’s “disappointing?”

Hmm. I’d say it’s more than disappointing. “Disappointing” is when you’re 12-year-old breaks the neighbor’s window with an errant baseball and lies to you about it. “Disappointing” is when your husband forgets your wedding anniversary.

What is it then? Honestly, it’s crushingly sad. I could get all high and mighty the way so many Repubs did (including our own Utah congressional delegation) when Bill Clinton got caught “not having sex with that woman.” Most mortals who slip up now and again would admit to a bit of glee when a man like Craig gets snared in his own trap of humiliating hypocrisy.

The deeply sad part is the shame Craig must have lived with for god knows how many years. It’s almost a full-time job, I’d imagine, running on a “family values” platform every six years, and headlining conferences with speeches against the “gay agenda.” I can only imagine the self-hatred it must require to try to bring home the bacon from D.C. for your home state while simultaneously making quick side trips to public bathrooms, looking for a blow job from some anonymous male.

One gay activist quoted in a news story earlier this week talked about the way closeted people like Craig live in steady denial about their homosexuality by claiming they only have occasional “urges” for gay sex. Ergo, they aren’t gay, couldn’t possibly be gay, and why would anyone think for a minute they might be gay? An “urge” is just something that happens. You can’t control them.

So I have to think of the old saw: If it acts like a duck, quacks like a duck, it must be … a GAY man by the name of Sen. Larry Craig.

Man, if we could simply be true to ourselves, knowing that society would accept us for who and what we are. Sorry if I sound like a Care Bear or Mr. Rogers. But really. Think of the pain and suffering living his truth might have saved Craig’s wife, his family and everyone else caught in his fallout. But mostly himself.

What do you all think?

Ted and I hopped on the motorcycle last Sunday and rode the nearly three hours to Price, Utah, for a fundraiser for the six miners still trapped in the Crandall Canyon Mine and for the families of the three men killed trying to rescue them.

We have always felt welcome and completely at home in Carbon and Emery counties–largely because we share the same politics with most of the people living there. I’ve given many speeches there to community and church groups, and people still swarm Ted when we visit, sharing all these cool memories of when he ran for U.S. Senate and Utah governor. Invariably, someone asks him when he plans to run again!

So I came home from that bittersweet event and wrote my weekly column for City Weekly about it.

Then, two days later, I saw an interesting letter on the Aug. 23 Salt Lake Tribune editorial page. Letter writer Mary O’Brien, who lives in Coal Country, pretty much sees the topic of miners’ hardscrabble personalities through the same prism as I do.

I am taking some heart, however, in recent news stories that have begun to show the families’ anger and resentment toward mine owner Bob Murray and his toadie for big mining business, MSHA’s Richard Stickler. It’s a powerful thing to hear them speak up against Murray’s one-sided version of the past 18 days. I hope they keep the heat on.

Thought-provoking view today on the latest tragic chapter of the Crandall Canyon Mine catastrophe.

While we in Utah keep waiting for the latest updates to last night’s “bump” inside the mine that killed three rescue miners and injured six others, outside experts are all over the story with their analysis.

I’m actually in this guy’s camp for the most part, how about the rest of you? At the very lest, Congress needs to hold hearings for oversight of mining safety at the first reasonable opportunity.

Mine owner Robert Murray’s insistence on dangerous practices like retreat mining has likely turned that place into a permanent death trap. Wretched.

My regular column this week for City Weekly explains the back story of The Salt Lake Tribune’s endorsement on August 12 of Keith Christensen for Salt Lake City mayor.

Some may see my opinion as classic sour grapes because the editorial board did not endorse my stepdaughter/mayoral candidate Jenny Wilson. I hope not. As I pointed out in the column, I firmly believe the Tribune can endorse anyone it chooses. I simply expect the board to come by the decision honestly, and not by some sham interview process. I’d bet the voters would see it this way, too. This editorial came down almost exactly as the Tribune’s puzzling endorsement of George W. Bush for president in 2004 — amounting to an “order up” from publisher Dean “Dinky” Singleton, who spends most of his time in Denver and never even takes part in the candidate interviews.

Newspaper owners and editors are always wringing their hands over why they are losing readers and failing to gain enough new ones. Could it be in part because of the cynical way they make editorial decisions?