All Blog Posts from Public Eye

Garbo talks! (And writes.) (And talks a lot more, with Rush Limbaugh.)

Clarence Thomas has been biting his tongue for 16 years. And now, as the Supreme Court opens with a docket of politically-charged cases – from Guantanamo rights to lethal injection – he has decided to end his Salinger-esque silent streak.

His new book “My Grandfather’s Son” comes out tomorrow – though in true 2007 form, the Washington Post found a sloppy bookseller who had it in the window a few days early. (You’d think a Supreme Court justice could get a little more love than Harry Potter, wouldn’t you?) In advance of the book, Thomas also sat down for an interesting interview with Steve Kroft on last night’s “60 Minutes.”

But on the off-chance you were looking for clarity or understanding or closure, forget it. The reviews are all over the place – unsurprising for such a polarizing figure.

Let’s kick off the reviews with the Los Angeles Times:

In his 15 years on the high court, the 59-year-old justice has long since established his once-doubted legal and intellectual bona fides. Yet with an eye on posterity, he seems to crave validation as having deserved his appointment and, more broadly, as a noble man fighting to do the right thing in an often bigoted, deceitful world. As Thomas puts it in his preface, he is rescuing his own history from the "careless hands" and "malicious hearts" of unnamed others.

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"One of the reasons I don't do media interviews is, in the past, the media often has its own script. One reason these stories are never told is that they are contrary to the script that people play by. The media, unfortunately, have been universally untrustworthy because they have their own notions of what I should think or I should do."

--Justice Clarence Thomas, in an interview with BusinessWeek, regarding why he is reluctant to do interviews.

It may be hard to believe, but there are some people in government who would rather not appear on television. At least in certain circumstances.

Those people would be Supreme Court justices. And the circumstance would be cameras in their courtroom.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, in an appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, told members that "televising our proceedings would change our collegial dynamic." He asked that the Senate (where Committee Chair Arlen Specter introduced a bill that would allow the cameras in the courtroom for most cases) not introduce "the insidious temptation to think that one of my colleagues would be trying to get a sound bite for TV."

Writes the Politico: "Kennedy argued that televising the proceedings would alter the dynamic of the court, where judges have only one hour to hear a case and question the attorneys to flesh out their positions on cases."

Several senators (who surely enjoy their own regular appearances on C-SPAN) disagreed with that contention. "I believe we have a right to see when the court decides all these (important) questions, including who would be the president, as was the case in 2000," said Specter.

This is by no means the first time that Justice Kennedy has made his feelings known to Congress regarding cameras in the courtroom. He and Justice Clarence Thomas testified last year during a meeting with a Senate panel, with Kennedy telling members: "It's not for the court to tell Congress how to conduct its proceedings." (The reverse, he added, was also true.) Thomas said of the camera idea's popularity among justices: "The general consensus is not one of glee."

Currently, however, "[o]pposition to cameras in the courts is not unanimous among the justices," writes the Politico. "Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito both have said they could be open to the idea."

It was the Roberts' court, after all, that recently decided that the Supreme Court would release transcripts of oral arguments on its Web site on the same day that the arguments take place. That may not sound like a revolution, but one Georgetown Law professor described it as "a tremendous opening to the outside world."

Of course, Justice David Souter (who is of course, still on the court) told a congressional panel in 1996 that "the day you see a camera come into our courtroom, it's going to roll over my dead body." So there's that to consider.

And now, the second installment of our new feature. This week's subject is CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews who sat down with me yesterday for a discussion about how he covers health care issues and the Supreme Court. Below you’ll find excerpts from our conversation.



A good deal of the "Evening News" audience is older Americans, for whom Medicare, prescription drug prices – stories you focus on -- are particularly important. It's also not a terribly sexy subject. Do you think that the "Evening News" spends enough time on this subject, considering the audience makeup?

It's hard to know what the exact mix is. And you have to be careful … all the broadcasts right now are in this very strange place where we have to survive in the business by attracting and holding an audience and to some extent you have to cater to that audience. But you also have to cover the news. So everything all the time can't be about just pleasing or pandering to the audience. On the other hand, this is the reality. The reality is that we do have an older demographic and we have some obligation to serve them.

So, that's a long-winded answer to say that I really don't know if we have the mix right. All I know is that our bosses in New York are very receptive and encouraging to make sure that we perform this service for an older audience and I have been basically ordered by New York to be on the lookout for consumer-oriented stories that are of interest to an older audience.

One interesting demographic trend in the country is that America is on the cusp of getting very old very fast … baby boomers are retiring – that's the short way to describe it. We are getting into an era when the entire country is going to be on more -- not less -- consumer drugs.

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CBS Radio News correspondent Barry Bagnato covers everything from cancer research to the Supreme Court from his post in Washington, D.C. With that wide range of responsibilities, Barry has some interesting tidbits to share – from people's fascination with Bill Clinton to the benefits and the drawbacks of covering more than just one beat.

What do you do at CBS News?

I am a correspondent for CBS Radio News, covering a variety of stories and issues in Washington, D.C., and outside. Because I have no single beat, I have to be flexible and versatile. The Supreme Court and medical stories are the closest things I have to regular responsibilities. For the court, for instance, I read briefs for cases, choose issues that I believe will interest our audience, and develop them.

What single issue should be covered more at CBS News?

Global warming.

Give us a great behind the scenes story.

Covering the first Bill Clinton campaign from start to finish was fascinating -- seeing a person go from bus rides in the cold in New Hampshire to the whirlwind of a Presidency. He was always running late for campaign stops. At the end of one long day, we landed in Dayton, Ohio, well past midnight. Even so, people who had no chance of meeting him were pressed up against a chain link fence yelling and reaching through with such hope in their eyes, they looked as if they were on the other side of the Berlin Wall. That moment, for me, makes Clinton's failings in office all the more inexcusable.

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In the age of the Internet, everybody, they say, is a press critic. Even Supreme Court Justices. On Saturday, the Associated Press reports, Justice Antonin Scalia said at a panel sponsored by National Italian American Foundation that "[t]he press is never going to report judicial opinions accurately." He added:

"They're just going to report, who is the plaintiff? Was that a nice little old lady? And who is the defendant? Was this, you know, some scuzzy guy? And who won? Was it the good guy that won or the bad guy? And that's all you're going to get in a press report, and you can't blame them, you can't blame them. Because nobody would read it if you went into the details of the law that the court has to resolve. So you can't judge your judges on the basis of what you read in the press."

As Slate's Dahlia Lithwick points out, Scalia isn't the only Supreme with something to say about the press. At the same event, Justice Samuel Alito complained about the Internet's role in legal reporting, and earlier Justice Anthony Kennedy complained that editorial writers regularly "misinterpret" the court's arguments because they often don't read them.

CBS News Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen tells Public Eye the comments are "disappointing but not surprising." The Justices, he writes in an email, "are so insulated from the outside world, and so sheltered from the rough-and-tumble of journalism, that they can hardly be expected to understand how difficult it is for even the most seasoned reporter to understand and accurately report what it is that the Justices have decided. Some of that blame has to go on the Justices themselves, who, with rare exceptions, write in a legalese that even Codebreakers would have a hard time following.”

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As the Supreme Court begins its term today (with a docket full of highly charged cases to consider) it also ushers in a new development that will make information about what goes on inside the Court a bit clearer to the public. No, there won't be cameras in the courtroom. (Just so we're clear, as far as Justice David Souter is concerned, cameras will enter the Court only when rolled over his dead body.) The Court did announce last month, however, that it will release transcripts of oral arguments on its Web site on the same day as they occur. OK, Now that might not sound like a revolution to you. But it's actually kind of a big deal. Richard Lazarus, a professor of law at Georgetown University and co-director of the school's Supreme Court Institute, described the move to the Washington Post in September as "a tremendous opening to the outside world." The new development "creates the potential for more intelligent speculation by more people than just those who were in the courtroom about how a particular case is going to come out," he said.

As far as correspondent Wyatt Andrews, who covers the Court for CBS News, is concerned, "Same-day transcripts will lead to more accurate reporting, period," he said. Previously, transcripts weren't immediately available, although in several high profile cases, the court has released same-day audio tapes of oral arguments. So those covering the Supreme Court had to function as their own stenographers, which has its obvious drawbacks.

Andrews explains: "During oral arguments, only one attorney per side faces the nine justices at any one time. Sometimes the question-and-answer exchanges between a Justice (or more than one) and the lone attorney fly by at warp speed and there is no way to quote these exchanges with perfection unless you are a stenographer--and I am not. More important, sometimes these warp speed exchanges get to the core of the case, and we (reporters) can't afford to be imprecise. Frequently after oral arguments I've been in conversations in which reporters are gathered to check with each other on how a particular exchange was spoken. Even then, you are left with quotations that are probably right, or almost certainly right. With same-day transcripts, we can get it absolutely right."

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Working with a medium that relies on pictures to tell a story, any television reporter who covers the Supreme Court will tell you that it sure would be nice to get some cameras in that courtroom. Well, if the justices have anything to do with it, that’s probably not going to happen anytime soon. As Congress considers proposals to allow cameras in Supreme Court sessions, a House panel yesterday sought reaction on the matter from Justices Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas during a meeting to consider the court’s budget.

The justices were less than thrilled with the idea.

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Remember the days of judicial filibusters and the "nuclear option" in the U.S. Senate? Remember how all that was supposed to be just a warm-up for a Supreme Court nomination? How times have changed. Perhaps Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) summed it up best during Tuesday’s hearings on the nomination of Judge John Roberts: “So you will be chief justice.”



Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE), while he conducted a robust dialogue with the judge, seemed to implicitly acknowledge that his efforts were moot, speaking to the judge as though he’d already been confirmed:

“… we are rolling the dice with you, Judge. We are going to face decisions -- you are and the American public is going to face decisions about whether or not ... patents can be issued for the creation of human life.”

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) seemed frustrated at the foregone conclusion of Roberts’ confirmation: “This is a confirmation proceeding, however, not a coronation,” he said.



And journalists have echoed the impression of the hearings as not much more than a formality.

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