Patterico's Pontifications

9/28/2007

A Faintly Embarrassing Gotcha from Toobin’s “The Nine”

Filed under: Books,General,Judiciary — Patterico @ 8:30 pm



Jeff Toobin’s “The Nine,” at page 301:

[O’Connor] even wrote a fawning, faintly embarrassing story about Roberts for Time Magazine. (“The stars must have been aligned that January morning in 1955 when John G. Roberts Jr. was born in Buffalo, N.Y., because almost everything thereafter led him straight to the Supreme Court of the U.S.”)

(All emphasis in this post is mine.)

O’Connor is suggesting that Roberts was almost . . . destined for the Court! How faintly embarrassing!

Oh, by the way . . . here is Toobin himself from page 262:

John Roberts was not genetically engineered to be a justice of the Supreme Court, but it often seemed that way. His career trajectory was so smooth, his progress so steady, his reputation so exalted, his personality so winning, that he seemed at times preternaturally favored for that ultimate destination.

To sum up:

“The stars must have been aligned” — faintly embarrassing.

“He seemed at times preternaturally favored” — Quality Journalism.

The secret, my friends, lies in the Big Words. They are preternaturally delicious.

21 Responses to “A Faintly Embarrassing Gotcha from Toobin’s “The Nine””

  1. Oh, man, that one has to sting.

    SPQR (6c18fd)

  2. Mayonnaise is pretty big too, and tastes great!

    Kevin (4890ef)

  3. Indeed.

    Patterico (2a8eaa)

  4. Wait — what am I saying? I hate mayonnaise!

    I must have thought you meant bouillabaisse.

    Patterico (2a8eaa)

  5. I prefer hollandaise or bearnaise.

    DRJ (ec59b5)

  6. I see a saying involving sauces, geese and ganders showing up any moment.

    SPQR (6c18fd)

  7. Oh come on, that’s all ya got? His opinion versus your opinion? Okay.

    Itsme (e4bccb)

  8. ROFL – that’s a retort, Itsme? So you are saying that you didn’t read the post at all?

    SPQR (6c18fd)

  9. I can take or leave Toobin’s writing style, or even his point of view. I’ve been waiting for some real revelations, but so far the comments have been getting thinner and thinner.

    Itsme (e4bccb)

  10. Itsme, but your comment about it being Toobin’s opinion versus Patterico’s just shows you didn’t even read the post.

    Its not Toobin’s opinion versus Patterico’s … its Toobin’s opinion versus Toobin’s opinion.

    Read it again, it isn’t difficult to understand.

    SPQR (6c18fd)

  11. No kidding.

    Maybe we can get quotations from the two pages around each quote for phony “context” to show that the two quotes are really “different.”

    Failing that, we can just pretend not to understand the point of the post.

    Patterico (2a8eaa)

  12. Thanks, I did read the post, SPQR.

    Itsme (e4bccb)

  13. There isn’t any evidence of that, Itsme.

    SPQR (6c18fd)

  14. Patterico, that was classic.

    SPQR (6c18fd)

  15. P #11:

    As I said, I’m waiting for something of substance. But instead, the observations seem to be getting less and less substantive. In my view, anyway.

    For example, I’m not as far as you into the book, but I was surprised at his take on the whole Cheney energy panel kerfuffle and the Scalia duck hunting trip (pp. 199-204). He said the fact that Cheney met with energy companies was “widely known, completely expected, and entirely proper,” and he thought the duck hunting trip was a tempest in a teapot. The whole thing being symptomatic of “partisan vitriol” from the left.

    I admit I really don’t follow Toobin’s writings or TV commentary, so maybe it’s not surprising to anybody else. But I found this interesting enough that it made me want to consider my assumptions about the story.

    I’d be interested in seeing some real discussion about those sorts of tidbits, but of course it’s not my blog.

    Itsme (e4bccb)

  16. Is it kerfuffle or kerfluffle?

    DRJ (ec59b5)

  17. Kerpuffle, perhaps?

    Itsme (e4bccb)

  18. Itsme,

    I’m about 20 pages from the end and plan a lengthy and detailed review.

    I’ll link all the posts that have noted Toobin’s numerous, numerous errors of fact.

    His analysis is a joke.

    I’ve contented myself so far with noting the occasional obvious contradiction — which this post does, as any intellectually honest person would acknowledge.

    Patterico (2a8eaa)

  19. I look forward to your analysis.

    Good night.

    Itsme (e4bccb)

  20. For example, I’m not as far as you into the book, but I was surprised at his take on the whole Cheney energy panel kerfuffle and the Scalia duck hunting trip (pp. 199-204). He said the fact that Cheney met with energy companies was “widely known, completely expected, and entirely proper,” and he thought the duck hunting trip was a tempest in a teapot. The whole thing being symptomatic of “partisan vitriol” from the left.

    I actually already had that flagged in my review as a surprising example of intellectual honesty.

    Patterico (2a8eaa)

  21. Patterico, I’m looking forward to your review, and also to Beldar’s comments.

    Mike Myers (d015a6)


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