Abstract
INTRODUCTION Yale Law School Professor Stephen Carter is one of the nation's most celebrated young scholars in the area of constitutional law and social policy, having already published two successful and important popular books in the field: Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby 1 and The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion. 2 Many people will be drawn to Carter's latest book--as I was--simply to find out what Stephen Carter has to say about another very interesting subject straddling law and politics: the "confirmation mess." They may be in for something of a letdown. It is difficult to say anything original and insightful about the confirmation process. Stephen Carter hasn't. That is not all Carter's fault, nor is it necessarily a serious flaw in a book on this subject. Rather, it is a measure of the difficulty of the task. The Confirmation Mess 3 is a readable and intelligent, if substantively lightweight, lunchroom conversation with Stephen Carter about the problems that have plagued the nomination and confirmation process for high government officials, and especially Supreme Court nominees, in recent years. Much of what Carter says is sensible but a bit treadworn: The confirmation process has spun out of control; we badly abuse nominees for high office (especially Supreme Court nominees); we really should be nicer if we expect good people to sign up for public service; and interest groups and the media engage in much distortion of candidates' records. All ...