Judging Mr. Right

摘要

It's a good thing that john roberts has been universally described as decent, funny, civil and fair, since he may be joining a court with a long history of pugilists, ideologues and misanthropes who have somehow made it past the U.S. Senate. Justice James Clark McReynolds, who served until 1941, was, in the words of historian David Garrow, a "drooling anti-Semite" who refused to speak with fellow Justices Louis Brandeis and Benjamin Cardozo or have his picture taken with them. Chief Justice Fred Moore Vinson was a glorified drinking buddy of President Harry Truman's whose sudden death was hailed by fellow Justice Felix Frankfurter as "the first indication I have ever had that there is a God." Justice Potter Stewart's friends said Stewart resigned partly because he couldn't stand Warren Burger any longer; Burger, he said, was like the show captain on an ocean liner who entertains passengers in the dining room while the real captain steers the ship.