God save this honorable court.

• Author: Barrett, Paul M.

GOD SAVE THIS HONORABLE COURT.

If the preliminary skirmishing is any indication, the impending battle for the Supreme Court will be the fiercest since FDR's second term court-packing controversy. The Reagan administration has taken the offensive with a rhetorical blitzkrieg led by Attorney General Edwin Meese III, who has vowed to eradicate the legacy of the liberal Warren Court. In highly unusual public speeches, two of the current Court's more liberal members have returned Messe's fire, angrily defending their view of the Constitution. With five of the present justices aged 76 or older, the stakes in this fight could be high indeed.

The clash takes place on a murky battlefield, where even veteran adversaries cannot distinguish with any precision between politics and legal principle. It's a swamp that neither liberals nor conservatives can drain of emotion and demagoguery. Meese has implied that his strategy-- appointing justices who will strictly obey the "plain meaning' of the Constitution's words and the "original intention' of its authors--transcends politics in a search for absolute truth. But Justice William Brennan has responded that the administration's appeal is "little more than arrogance cloaked as humility'--dishonesty in no uncertain terms.

Into this morass strides Laurence H. Tribe, Harvard professor of law and renowned Supreme Court litigator. Tribe's 1978 treatise, American Constitutional Law, is probably the most influential contemporary reference book in the field. Now, in God Save This Honorable Court,* he challenges lawyers and non-lawyers alike to consider how the selection of Supreme Court justices ought to work. Tribe describes the slender volume as the product of years of research and reflection, but his urgent tone prompted Meese's spokesman, Terry Eastland, to suggest that the book be retitled, "God Save This Honorable Court From Ronald Reagan.' Although the product is more advocacy than scholarship, Tribe offers some genuinely fresh ideas deserving attention from combatants on both sides. He candidly concedes that the appointment process is political in nature but reminds us of the Senate's constitutional responsibility to provide "advice and consent' on the president's nominations. This duty forbids either a rubber stamp or unthinking opposition based only on partisan hostility. Instead, Tribe writes, the Senate must undertake a principled inquiry that includes investigation of both specific legal views and a larger sense of the Supreme Court's mission.

* God Save This Honorable Court. Laurence H. Tribe. Random House, $17.95.

Reading Madison's mind

It is impossible to discuss the selection of Supreme Court justices without addressing the perennial debate over how the Constitution ought to be read. Tribe's endorsement of the mainstream liberal position is concise and convincing. He rejects the philosophy of "strict constructionism,' which demands exclusive attention to--and literal interpretation of--the constitutional text. The blueprint for our political system provides only an ambiguous outline of the powers and limits of government. The terms themselves --"free speech,' "unreasonable searches and seizures,' "due process,' "equal protection'-- are so broad, that, in Tribe's words, they "not only invite but compel the Supreme Court to put meaning into the Constitution.'

Similarly, the ideas and goals of men such as Madison and Jefferson offer important insight into the meaning of the Constitution and its application to modern...