He'd Rather Be in Florida

Justice John Paul Stevens, who turns 90 this month, recently announced he would be stepping down from his seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Timothy Egan (The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America) thinks that his replacement should fulfill--or perhaps not fulfill--a particular requirement.

At last count, there were about 200 law schools in the United States accredited by the American Bar Association, but apparently only two of them--Harvard and Yale--can be a path to serving on the highest court in the land ...

Harvard and Yale need no extra seats at the high end of American power. The law school at Yale is currently represented by three justices--Sonia Sotomayor, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito--the latter two nominated by George H.W. Bush, Yale University class of ’48, and George W. Bush, Yale University ’69, Harvard Business School ’75.

Five sitting justices have gone to Harvard Law School--John Roberts, Anthony M. Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsburg (though she transferred to Columbia) and Stephen G. Breyer. Three of them were appointed by presidents who went to Harvard or Yale. That’s an Ivy inside straight, a picture of narrow-minded exclusivity that defies the meritocratic ideals of this big land.

Will Stevens, the court's "liberal leader," be missed?

In a profile of the justice, Jeffrey Toobin (The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court) identifies at least one crucial period of Stevens' deliberations, with an outcome President Obama would do well to review for his new appointment.

[T]he summit of Stevens’s achievements on the bench came during the Bush Administration, in the series of decisions about the detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, and he kept for himself the most important of these opinions. In the 2004 case of Rasul v. Bush, among the first major cases to arise from Bush’s war on terror--and the first time that a President ever lost a major civil-liberties case in the Supreme Court during wartime--Stevens wrote for a six-to-three majority that the detainees did have the right to challenge their incarceration in American courts.

In his opinion, which was written in an especially understated tone, in notable contrast to the bombastic rhetoric that accompanied the war on terror, he cited Rutledge’s dissent in the Ahrens [v. Clark] case--which he himself had helped write, fifty-six years earlier. One of Stevens’s law clerks, Joseph T. Thai, later wrote an article in the Virginia Law Review entitled "The Law Clerk Who Wrote Rasul v. Bush," which concluded that "Stevens’s work on Ahrens as a law clerk exerted a remarkable influence over the Rasul decision."

For more on the history of the Supreme Court, please browse our collection.

Photo courtesy of Kyle Rush (CC BY 2.0).

The Messy Business of Democracy

PBS's award-winning series Frontline has produced a documentary on the recent health-reform legislation called Obama's Deal.

The program "reveals the dramatic details of how an idealistic president pursued the health care fight--despite the warnings of many of his closest advisers--and how he ended up making deals with many of the powerful special interests he had campaigned against."

The complete broadcast can be viewed online.

Most interesting are the widely diverging viewer comments in the site, expressing outrage (from both sides of the political aisle) about the legislation or the documentary's supposed biases; offering counter-perspectives (from other countries); and occasionally noting appreciation for what has been accomplished thus far.

A sample:

Although I'm in agreement with the notion that a nation as successful and capable as the United States should insure every American is provided with basic health care coverages and services, I detest how we got here, and do not believe that we have achieved "reform" in any serious regard. I have looked at the tea party uprisings in America with disdain and looked on in horror at how polarized we have become. Yet I also believe we should throw the whole Washington insider lot out and bring into lawmaking people who will put the interests of the American people first, and stop trying to protect their political careers and the interests of big Pharma, Insurance and health care providers. We seem to have totally lost our ability to "do the right thing" in Washington.

Watch it and decide for yourself.

Photo courtesy of marcn (CC BY 2.0).

"I'm Going to Die with These Dummies"

Matt Latimer spent many years climbing the Republican party ranks as a communications specialist and all-around cheerleader.

An idealistic and energetic conservative, he ultimately arrived at Karl Rove's White House after a stint with then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

In Speech*Less: Tales of a White House Survivor, Latimer chronicles his transformation from starry-eyed delegate at the GOP's first Youth Convention to veteran speechwriter suffering a severe case of morbid humor.

Many political and career memoirs seem retaliatory and revenge-oriented. As a relative low-man on the totem pole, Latimer has no particular axe to grind.

He recounts the foibles and idiosyncrasies of Washington's elite--ranging from Bob Dole and Kay Bailey Hutchinson (whom he once idolized) to Robert Gates and George W. Bush--with the kind of honest self-amusement one might find in a personal journal.

But he also shares his own mistakes and shortcomings in service to the party he loved, which makes this book so entertaining.

Here, Latimer describes his first impressions of the White House:

Many people envision life in the West Wing as something akin to the old Aaron Sorkin TV show: where attractive young people walk briskly through the halls and discuss matters of great importance with snappy dialogue and sexual tension. That was not what George W. Bush's West Wing was like. Most of the senior staff weren't attractive or particularly young. They were balding, middle-aged, overweight men, with pasty white skin untouched by the sun. A 7:30 a.m. senior staff meeting was like walking into the lounge of a high-end golf course in Westchester, New York. The women were almost a perfect division between pretty, young, usually southern sorority girls with strong religious backgrounds and old warhorses who'd fought in the trenches against the Democrats for decades and showed it. Sexual tension was at a minimum.

Paint the White House Green?

Seattle-based Grist.org delivers the "green scoop" on President-elect Obama's cabinet picks.

Many score high marks for their publicly expressed concerns about climate change; others catch criticism for supporting genetically modified crops.

What's special about Grist? From their "About Us" page:

Let's face it: reading environmental journalism too often feels like eating your vegetables. Boiled. With no butter.

But at Grist, we believe that news about green issues and sustainable living doesn't have to be predictable, demoralizing, or dull. We butter the vegetables! And add salt! And strain metaphors! ...

[W]e throw brickbats when they're needed and bestow kudos when they're warranted. And while we take our work seriously, we don't take ourselves seriously, because of the many things this planet is running out of, sanctimonious tree-huggers ain't one of them.

On a similar note, have a look at our recent purchase, The New Village Green: Living Light, Living Local, Living Large.

The book contains a variety of informative articles and wisdom, including how to clean the air at home with house plants, the basics of financial independence, and even "How Insects Hunker Down for the Winter."

Elsewhere, TNVG contributor Larry Saltzman suggests some timely resources in "Understanding the Current Money Melt-Down," via HopeDance.

Have You Registered to Vote?

Illinois citizens must register to vote by or before October 7th ... 28 days prior to the election on November 4!

DeclareYourself.com offers helpful information about voter registration, eligibility, election day, and more.

The site has compiled easy-to-read, state-by-state info, including for Illinois.

Local residents can obtain registration forms at the library or through the Champaign County Clerk site.

For more information, consult the Illinois State Board of Elections.