The Oath: The Obama White House and... by Jeffrey Toobin

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From the prizewinning author of The Nine , a gripping insider's account of the momentous ideological war between the John Roberts Supreme Court and the Obama administration. From the moment John Roberts, the chief justice of the United States, blundered through the Oath of Office at Barack... read more

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“... conservatives had succeeded in gun control and the Second Amendment in the new millennium the way liberals had won on school desegregation and equal protection in the 1960s. Through the use of politics, the courts, and the broader culture, each side in turn had changed the understanding if the Constitution. In both cases, the political victories were so i few being that ionization became futile.”
“As a general principle, I believe that the Constitution confers an individual right to bear arms. But just because you have an individual right does not mean that the state or local government can't constrain the exercise of that right, in the same way that we have a right to private property but local governments can establish zoning ordinances that determine how you can use it.”
Obama in a debate with Hillary Clinton before the Pennsylvania primary
“The problem I had is that when I examined Judge Roberts's record and history of public service, it is my personal estimation that he has far more often used his formidable skills in behalf if the strong in opposition to the weak.”
Senator Obama when voting against Roberts confirmation
“The professional background of a justice invariably shapes his or here approach to the job. Temperamentally, Rehnquist never left the Nixon Justice Department, where he was the assistant attorney general charged with building a tough-on-crime agenda; O'Connor, the former Arizona state senator, never stopped being a politician; Scalia and Breyer remained forever the law professors they once were. John Roberts was a litigator whose primary responsibility was to figure out ways to win. For Roberts, the law, ultimately, was all about winning.”
“More than any other justice, perhaps more than any other public figure, Clarence Thomas helped inspire the Tea Party movement.”
“In March, Obama signed the health care law. In April, Ginni Thomas stated: "Let me tell you, there's a war going on, and Washington wants to make it look real complicated, real technical. It's not so complicated, it's not so technical ... You know what it comes down to? Are we gonna be self-governed by a Constitution that starts with 'we the people,' or are we gonna be ruled by elitists who want to govern our cradle-to-grave lives?"”
“Anita Hill, it's Ginny Thomas. I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did to my husband.”
Voice mail Clarence Thomas' wife left for Anita Hill on 10/9/2010
“In short, virtually all the evidence that has emerged since the hearings corroborated Hill's testimony.”
“Thomas last asked a question during oral argument in February 2006.”
“Rehnquist and later Roberts recognized that Thomas's views were so extreme that they could not assign controversial opinions to him and expect a majority of his colleagues to agree.”
“<Thomas> paid far less deference to prior rulings than anyone else on the Court. ... As Roberts put it during his confirmation hearings, "Adherence to precedence promotes evenhanded news, promotes fairness, promotes stability and predictability. And those are very important values in a legal system."”
Judge Roberts during his confirmation hearing
“Following up on a series of questions by Scalia, Alito said to the lawyer, "I think what Justice Scalia wants to know is what James Madison thought about video games. Did he enjoy them?" It was true, too, that the framers often disagreed profoundly with one another, making a single intent behind any constitutional text even more difficult to discern.”
“For two decades, the constitutionality of the individual mandate had never been questioned. But in just a few months, it's illegality under the commerce clause became an article of faith within the Republican Party. ... The legal fight over health care reform became a defining symbol of the role reversal that had taken place between liberals and conservatives over the past several decades. Liberals, once the apostles of judicial activism, embraced judicial restraint and deference to democratically elected branches of government; conservatives, wh had rallied for so long against judges who ... "legislate from the bench," set out to persuade judges to do just that.”

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"So let me ask you this," Greg Craig said, "does anyone there think he's not the president?"

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Jeffrey Toobin (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Doubleday
Country: USA
Publication Date: September 18, 2012
ISBN: 0385527209
Page Count: 336

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Books › Law › Procedures & Litigation › Courts
Books › Law › Constitutional Law

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New York Times book review: BOOKS OF THE TIMES "9 Justices Who Sit in the Eye of Storms" By MICHIKO KAKUTANI. Published: October 22, 2012

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The Oath (2012) (edit title/settings)

The Obama White House and the Supreme Court

by Jeffrey Toobin (Author) (edit contributors)