Author: John Paul Stevens

2011, Little, Brown and Co.

Filed Under: Nonfiction, Memoir.

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In case you hadn’t heard, it’s Supreme Court Season again, which means our nation’s top judges are now hearing cases that will affect your life. Holding top billing, we have The State of Florida (and 26 other co-signing states) v. the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which will test the constitutionality of last year’s controversial healthcare overhaul. But this is only one case of many, and, as Atlantic legal correspondent Garrett Epps points out, the majority of the cases the court will hear this session “have huge practical impact but are devoid of drama.”

You might say the same thing about Five Chiefs. Without an ounce of sensationalism or any inflammatory rhetoric, it offers an insider’s perspective on the deliberative processes of our nation’s foremost deliberating body. Stevens presents a historical survey of the Court under each of its seventeen Chief Justices, focusing on the five who sat during the years he was personally associated with the Court, from his clerkship in 1947 until his resignation in 2010.

It’s an eye-opening look at how the Court actually works, from the influence of the Chief’s management style to the long-standing traditions meant to foster cordiality between people who are paid to argue with each other. Five Chiefs won’t keep you up at night, but it will make you think about how we decide some of the most important questions facing the country today… so maybe it will keep a you up at night. …
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Author: George W. Bush

2010, Crown Publishers

Filed Under: Memoirs, Nonfiction

Two things immediately came to my mind after reading George W. Bush’s Decision Points: a joke and an ancient Chinese novel Journey to the West (His-yu Chi – Xiyou ji). First the joke: once a professional consultant/adviser came across a shepherd with a large herd of sheep. He said to the shepherd, ‘I can tell exactly how many sheep you have.’ The shepherd apparently amazed at the claim asked him to go ahead but the consultant/adviser said that he will charge one of the sheep as a fee for telling him the exact number of his sheep. The shepherd gave it a thought and agreed to the deal. The consultant/adviser then took out his laptop and portable internet connection, got connected to the satellite monitoring system, browsed for the area where they were present, zoomed-in on the herd of sheep, counted them, and after consuming an hour or so told the shepherd that he had 139 sheep. The shepherd confirmed the number and the consultant/adviser took one of the sheep as a fee for the service. The shepherd then said to the consultant/adviser, ‘if I tell you your profession can I have my sheep back?’ Curious, the consultant/adviser agreed. The shepherd said, ‘You must a consultant or an adviser somewhere.’ The consultant/adviser was totally startled and asked the shepherd, ‘Yes I am a consultant/adviser, but how do you know?’ ‘Two reasons.’ The shepherd replied. ‘First, you created a job for yourself when there was in fact no need of it and told me something which I already knew. And the second is that you don’t know a shit about your job, now give my dog back.’ …
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Author: Mitt Romney

St. Martins Press, 2010

Filed under: Nonfiction, Memoirs

[Reviewer's note: As with my previous review of a political book, I want to be honest. I am not blind to the fact that my opinions of this book are skewed by my political beliefs.]

I wanted to like this book.

No Apology is Mitt Romney’s attempt to express who he is politically, and he makes that intention clear in the second paragraph of his introduction. Of his three political campaigns he writes:

each time, when the campaign was over, I felt that I hadn’t done an adequate job communicating all that I had intended to say…. This book gives me a chance to say more than I did during my campaign.

And the truth is, I believe him. It’s impossible to deny this guy’s qualifications. In 1994, he came points away from stealing a MA Senate seat from Ted Kennedy. As the CEO for the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, he inherited a financially and politically disastrous situation and turned it into a success. And he more or less did the same as Governor of Massachusetts, turning Jane Swift’s mess into a successful, one-term tenure. Had he not decided to forgo a second term in order to make a serious run at the ’08 presidency, he’d probably still be governor. Politically, he had something special. He was Scott Brown back when Scott Brown was just some dude in the state chambers who once dangled balls for a Cosmo spread.

But that Mitt Romney isn’t the one who showed up to the ’08 primary. Instead, he came across as stiff GOP avatar who couldn’t distinguish himself from a pack of surefire also rans.

So I was rooting for No Apology, rooting for the likable and charismatic Mitt to resurrect himself. Instead, I got the ’08 stiff. …
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