#8. The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court
by Jeffrey
Toobin
Publisher: Doubleday Publishers
384 pages
$27.95
An organization as closed, powerful and secretive as the Supreme Court,
and as driven by powerful personalities, seems almost un-American, even
though it protects and maintains the core of what makes this country
work. Maybe that's why it's so fascinating. Toobin does an excellent job
of introducing us to those personalities, with surprising access,
penetrating analysis and a brisk narrative style. At their best the
Supremes appear as heroic scholars of justice; at their worst they
display all-too-human failings, including "vanity, overconfidence,
impatience, arrogance and simple political partisanship."
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