Supreme Courtship is a satire, but it’s also a classic farce. Buckley has a particular talent for dialogue he would have fit in nicely as a screenwriter during the Cary Grant / Katherine Hepburn era. Buckley keeps the story moving at a rapid pace, and there are laugh-out-loud moments on nearly every page. The remainder (majority, actually) of the book is devoted to the confirmation hearings and aftermath of same. President Vanderdamp’s idea of fun in this scenario is to nominate a candidate so beloved by the populace that the Judiciary Committee can’t help but approve her nomination, but so outlandish that Dexter Mitchell will likely blow a gasket from holding back his not-so-righteous indignation.Īnd that’s where Pepper Cartwright enters the picture. After Mitchell’s committee effectively ruins the careers of two nominees (in what one adviser called a ‘reprise of the Salem witch trials’), the President decides that it’s his turn to have some fun. The President is well aware that Dexter Mitchell (Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and general blowhard) wants to be nominated to the Court (which is not going to happen), and so will go to great lengths to discredit any nominee Vanderdamp submits. Nevertheless, it’s unseemly for a Supreme Court Justice to walk around with aluminum foil over his ears.). (Seeing eels in the toilet and the ghost of Oliver Wendell Holmes may well be a perfectly normal response to decades of legal minutiae, and would likely make deliberations considerably more entertaining. Mortimer Brinnin has finally agreed to resign his position on the Court after years of declining cognitive skills and recent hallucinations. I’ll bet you can see where this is going. It’s also the story of Pepper Cartwright: Texan, redhead (with all the stereotypical fiery temperament that comes with it), daughter of the famous televangelist, Reverend Roscoe, and presiding Judge on the hit television show, Courtroom Six. ![]() ![]() Vanderdamp: President of the United States, bowling aficionado, and ruthless killer of so many bills that the legislature calls him ‘Don Veto’. Supreme Courtship is the story of Donald P. I came to know of Christopher Buckley last summer, when he was making the press rounds for They Eat Puppies, Don’t They? After listening to an interview, I knew I had to start reading him (full disclosure: he had me at the word ‘punditariat’).
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