Tears of a Gown

I know. It's an immensely lame pun, but sometimes I just don't have the strength to resist. Yesterday ThinkProgress passed along a report about that almost restores your faith in human nature. In his new book on the Supreme Court, The Nine, legal scribe Jeffrey Toobin recounts how Justice David Souter was so troubled by the Court's setting aside of precedent and logic to award the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000 that he almost quit in disgust. Here's the money quote from the Yeas and Nays blog at examiner.com:

Toobin writes that while the other justices tried to put the case behind them, "David Souter alone was shattered," at times weeping when he thought of the case. "For many months, it was not at all clear whether he would remain as a justice," Toobin continues. "That the Court met in a city he loathed made the decision even harder. At the urging of a handful of close friends, he decided to stay on, but his attitude toward the Court was never the same."

What a coincidence! My attitude toward the Court has never been the same, either.