Kindergarten Court: why the best justices are those that play well with others.

• Author: Pomper, Stephen
• Position: The Supreme Court - Book review

The Supreme Court By Jeffrey Rosen $25, Times Books/Henry Holt

Ask yourself what qualities make for a great Supreme Court justice, and the answers that spring quickly to mind are along the lines of "brilliance" and "consistency" and "impartiality." (If you're really being honest you might add "shares my politics" to that list.) But in his most recent book, The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries That Defined America, Jeffrey Rosen argues for another possibility: temperament. Rosen's point is that the Court's most successful jurists--he spotlights John Marshall, John Harlan, Hugo Black, and William Rehnquist, and tips his hat to several others--have the same temperamental strengths that one looks for in high-performing kindergarteners. They listen well, are pleasant, and do not whine. They know how and when to go with the flow, and are keenly concerned about the well-being of the group. And they are good sharers: for example, in the early days of the Court, Justice Marshall arranged for the justices to board together, and lubricated their social gatherings with his private stock of Madeira. How nice is that?

It is, of course, very nice, and Rosen delivers up similarly nice stories about the other justices whom he fits for haloes in this book. Justice Black had Harry Truman to his place for bourbon and barbecue after handing him a stinging setback in the steel-seizure cases. Sandra Day O'Connor invited bachelor David Souter for Thanksgiving, out of pure grandmotherly graciousness. And when William Rehnquist stopped in for services at a Lutheran church while attending an out-of-town judicial conference, he wanted so badly to avoid being the center of attention that when asked his line of work he averred to being a "government lawyer." Rosen suggests that these well-honed social (and to some degree political) instincts contribute to a jurist's effectiveness on the bench and inform judgments that stand the test of time. As evidence, Rosen points repeatedly to John Marshall, who was able to expand and solidify the Court's jurisdiction in part because of his skill in avoiding confrontations with the political branches. In the iconic case Marbury v. Madison, Marshall was canny enough to hand Thomas Jefferson a political victory (declining to make him honor departing President John Adams's last-minute appointments of several "midnight judges") while at the same time claiming for the Court its defining authority--the power of judicial...