Courting Rituals
Even in the context of the Supreme Court tussles that have provided political entertainment since at least the 1930s, the 1987 saga of Robert Bork, Douglas Ginsburg and Anthony Kennedy broke new ground. What made the play rougher this time was the heightened consciousness of the power stakes, a more aggressive deployment of the interest groups, and a great sophistication in media use. If the overworked term “watershed” still conveys some meaning, it applies here to the future direction of confirmation politics.
The Historian, the Novelist, and the Faith
The fortunate few who can afford Fortune were treated in the November issue to an essay by John Chamberlain on "The Businessman in Fiction." Preaching in Henry Luce's tabernacle for the already converted, Chamberlain made a fervent plea for faith in the businessman not only as the source from whom all our blessings flow, but also as a beneficent force in the culture and an admirable family man and community-conscious citizen who has been treated villainously by the ingrate novelists. Chamberlain's discussion of the novelists from William Dean Howells and Frank Norris to Norman Mailer and Hiram
Lincoln as War Leader
With these four volumes Carl Sandburg completes the life of Lincoln begun in "The Prairie Years." Taking the total achievement, there is nothing in historical literature that I know quite comparable with it. I generally distrust the meeting of perfect writer and perfect theme. There is a blueprint seemliness about such conjunctions that rarely issues in a creative product.
Lincoln as War Leader
Mr. Justice Cardozo: A Man of Good Will
Out of the recent planetary turmoil of the Supreme Court, those down below who have been counting on the liberal Justices have been denied even a handful of stardust. Mr. Justice Roberts cut short in the railroad pension case what had been all along a rather indecent one-sided flirtation. Justices Hughes and Stone have been giving the liberals a passing solace, but theirs was never a deeply rooted point of view, and their liberalism has waned with the decline of the prestige of the New Deal. As for Mr.
