“Supreme Courtship: A Novel,” by Christopher Buckley

“Supreme Courtship: A Novel,” by Christopher Buckley (New York: Twelve / Hachette Book Group; 2008), 285 pages.

American political institutions have been previously satirized by Christopher Buckley in Thank You For Smoking (political lobbying), Florence of Arabia (diplomacy), and Boomsday (Social Security). In Supreme Courtship, Christopher Buckley satirizes the method of appointing justices to the United States Supreme Court.

Buckley mocks the difficulties sitting Presidents face when nominating a person to the Supreme Court. The stumbling block is the body that can either confirm or not confirm the President’s nomination, the United States Senate Judiciary Committee. In Supreme Courtship, the President of the United States unsuccessfully nominated two successive candidates for one vacant seat on the court. The chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who asked the President to appoint him to the open seat on the Supreme Court, blocked both appointments for entirely spurious or bogus reasons. The President was so angry at the Senate committee for rejecting his perfectly capable nominees that he decided to chose as his third nominee the star of a reality television courtroom show. Naturally, his advisers try to convince him against making such a nomination but the President would not be deterred. The television judge, somewhat reminiscent of Judge Judy, is vivacious, feisty, outspoken and blunt, and not above being convinced by the President to be a nominee to a position she considers herself unqualified to hold. To the horror of Washington insiders (except the President) and to the delight of the public, the President’s third nominee (the television judge) is nominated for the vacant court position, and thereby made subject to confirmations hearings, all while keeping down her day job of being a television star. The Senate Committee is outraged, as is the nominee’s television producer husband who thinks her obligations to fulfill her television contract are more important than being placed on the Supreme Court. From this premise, the story unfolds in two parts; the humorous preparation for the hearings and the actual confirmation hearings, and second, after her confirmation, her actions as a Supreme Court judge during three important decisions, the most important being one that decides the result of a presidential election.

Buckley again succeeds in satirizing America’s political institutions. His method this time is to highlight the juxtaposition between the snobbish, elitist, east-coast educated Washington insiders and the populist, plainspoken vivacious television star of the people, a person who didn’t want to be a Supreme Court judge, who admits that she’s not qualified for the job, but accepts the nomination because the President asked her. Nonetheless, there are a few aspects of this book that some readers may find objectionable. For example, there is some profanity, but not of such frequency to make it all that memorable. There is some implied adultery or fornication that is neither explicit, nor essential to the story. In fact, it could be argued that the entire sub-plot consisting of the romantic relationship between two characters was only included to enable the author to use a play on words in the title. Without this contrived relationship, there would be no courtship to enable the book to be titled Supreme Courtship.

Putting these quibbles aside, the strength of this book’s humor is that it plays to the average American’s distain for Washington D.C. and Washington D.C. insiders. Buckley mocks the Supreme Court justices (who try to one-up each other in their use of Latin legal terms), the hypocrisy of Congressmen who speak of their years of “public service” but really mean “self service.” He also mocks the Washington D.C. establishment’s distain for non-elites that refuse to ingratiate themselves with these insiders, the sort of people that didn’t go to the right college, have memberships of the right club, and live in what is now pejoratively called “flyover country,” the vast expanse of the United States that rests between the two coasts. Despite this stinging rebuke of the American ruling class, Buckley is optimistic about America, average American’s, and the resilience of the institutions of American government. To Buckley, these institutions are so resilient and American people so full of good sense, that, in his view, even a vivacious, feisty and blunt television judge can be placed next to the clowns running one of the highest institutions in the country and against the prevailing wisdom of all, except the general public, do a good job and make the right decisions when it really counts. Who could not enjoy a story such as this?