Pajamas Media: Biased Schnooks Write Slanted Books

March 22, 2008 1:00 AM

Toobin, biased schnook

Burt Prelutsky always worries that he might miss the subtle biases of nonfiction books. He finds no such subtlety in Jeffrey Toobin’s Supreme Court tome.

by Burt Prelutsky

Often, people are surprised to learn that I much prefer reading fiction to nonfiction. The main reason is that those who write fiction tend to be people who write for a living, whereas the folks who crank out history books and biographies are very often those whose first love is research.

The other reason is that in a novel, the author is free to divulge everything the characters know, think, feel, and do. When it comes to nonfiction, we are often dealing with what the writer imagines took place, and we may not be aware of his bias. There is a reason, after all, why there are so many different accounts of historical events.

A German historian is probably going to have a different take on the Third Reich than an Englishman will. A devout Christian will not write the same book about Jesus that an atheist will. Someone once observed that history is written by those who win the wars. That’s not entirely true. But those on the winning side certainly write from a very different perspective from those whose countries were vanquished.

I just finished reading Jeffrey Toobin’s The Nine, a book subtitled “Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court.” I have no way of knowing if what he wrote about the various justices is true. A lot of it sounds like gossip, which I don’t mind. After all, I didn’t read it because I’m prepping to argue a case before the Court, but because I was curious to know more about these people who, in many ways, have a greater influence on our lives than the president or the hundred members of the Senate.

The problem, I found, is that Mr. Toobin, who writes for the New Yorker, couldn’t keep his liberal bias under wraps for more than a couple of pages at a time. But that’s the way it is with the New Yorker. In case you stopped reading the magazine in the days when it was best known for fiction by James Thurber and J.D. Salinger and cartoons by Peter Arno and Charles Addams, those days are long past. For the past several years, it has proudly carried the water for the far left. Things reached a point where you couldn’t get through reviews of books and movies that had nothing to do with politics without coming across a paragraph bashing Bush and the Republicans. The first few times, I thought there had been a mix-up at the printer and that these attacks were supposed to appear elsewhere in the magazine.

Toobin wears his partisanship so blatantly that whereas justices Scalia and Thomas are constantly being identified as conservatives, Souter, Kennedy, O’Connor, Stevens, and Ginsburg are praised for being moderates and middle-of-the-road.

Toobin devotes a great deal of time and space to a rehashing of the Florida vote in 2000. He keeps insisting that it was strictly a state issue, while at the same time ignoring the fact that by Florida law, the final nose count had to be determined within seven days of the election, but the Florida Supreme Court, which consisted entirely of Democrats, arbitrarily granted an additional five days for the recount.

Although Sandra Day O’Connor walked on water so far as Toobin was concerned, he could barely find it in his heart to forgive her for granting Bush the fifth vote he needed to be declared the winner in that election.

Frankly, I would have thought that it was worth at least a footnote for Toobin to have noted that if Gore had carried his home state that year, we would all have been spared the endless yakking about chads. On the other hand, had he carried Tennessee, he wouldn’t have won an Oscar or a Nobel Prize.

Justice Kennedy comes in for high praise because, as an inveterate tourist, he begins basing his decisions on what European socialists believed, pretty much ignoring our own constitutional guidelines. In similar fashion, Stephen Breyer, who like Toobin opposes capital punishment, gets high marks for quoting legal opinions from Jamaica, India, and even Zimbabwe. But you know that if Scalia, Thomas, Alito, or Roberts based their own decisions on what Polish or Australian conservatives believed, Toobin would rake them over the coals.

When Thomas opposed colleges and universities using race as a basis for admission, Toobin dismisses him as representing “only a fringe view — on the court and in the nation at large.” Not only is that a questionable conclusion regarding the nation, but one that is of no concern to Toobin when it comes to, say, capital punishment, which public opinion very much supports, or same-sex marriage, which is opposed by the overwhelming majority of Americans.

He writes: “One reason the U.S. military refused to treat the Guantanamo detainees as POWs was because under the Geneva Conventions, such prisoners may not be interrogated.” No mention of the fact that they were in fact enemy combatants, not soldiers. They didn’t wear uniforms or carry a flag, and were therefore not covered by the Geneva Conventions.

When Toobin mentions the Washington Times, he refers to it as “a sort of house organ of the conservative movement,” but he doesn’t dismiss the Washington Post, the New York Times, or, God forbid, his own magazine as house organs of the liberal movement.

After spending the better part of 300 pages fawning over Justice O’Connor for the sublime role she played in bringing about 5-4 Court rulings with which he agreed, Toobin bemoans the fact that Roberts and Alito are responsible for a number of 5-4 votes that don’t really create precedents, that serve only to point out how divided on important issues the Court seems to be.

Now I hope you have a better idea of why I prefer reading fiction. When I read that someone is an arch villain who deserves to be pilloried, I prefer knowing it’s because he’s committed a violent crime, betrayed a friend or loved one, or at least evicted an old lady from her home on Christmas Eve, and not simply because some left-wing schnook from the New Yorker didn’t agree with his vote on racial quotas or eminent domain.

Television writer Burt Prelutsky is the author of Conservatives Are From Mars, Liberals Are From San Francisco (101 Reasons Why I’m Happy I Left the Left).

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Comments (11)

Nor Meyer :

Yeah, the New Yorker is hopelessly in the thrall of the leftists, which is kinda funny considering all the hi-dollar merchandise the magazine promotes. We subscribe for the cartoons and the cover art, and the occasional non-politicized articles. Their commentary is impossible to read.

Mar 22, 2008 03:36 AM

Richard :

Sir;

I dare say that one would expect nothing less from a liberal writer. In their elite world anyone that is not on the same page as themselves are evil, corrupt, conservative bigots.

Additionally their own highly moral attitudes of self-infatuation cannot see themselves as EVER being in the wrong.

Respectfully Yours
Richard W. KY

Mar 22, 2008 03:51 AM

Hellen Harvey :

How anyone can associate themselves with conservatives and not recognize that they represent the most reprehensible aspects of a democracy boggles the liberal mind.
No matter the whack jobs that might call themselves liberal - they will never be accused of worshiping the almighty dollar, gripping power for the sake of power and believing in their own entitlement over the plebs.
Evil begins somewhere, but never in liberal ideology.

Mar 22, 2008 06:23 AM

Michael Canzano :

Harvey , Liberals have a tendency to agree on giving away everything with the exception of what they own.
It is because of their pseudo eliteness the country is in the war. They are the real terrorists in our Nation.They never apoligize for their failed programs , their hatred of America , their insistance Socialism should be our God. Yet none of you leave America to live in Socialistic countries. Liberals are the epitimy of hypocrisy.
American Christian Infidel
Michael Canzano

Mar 22, 2008 10:10 AM

Rubicon :

OK Helen, I've heard of blinders, but you perhaps take the real cake on the issue.
Liberal ideology "never" births evil?? Yeah, right. Lets get to the dirty real quick here & slink in the gutter.
The "National Socialists," pushing all sorts of liberal idea's & all sorts of liberal governing notions, convinced an entire nation to but into their rhetoric.
What the world & the people of that nation got were, NAZI"s. They killed, maimed, tortured, intimidated & lied their way through most of Europe.
They started out wanting "the state" to rescue the people & "take care of them." They ended it with expectations all would give their lives to perpetuate the state.
Sorry Helen, but liberal ideology has more of a history of evil & birthing it, than any conservative group, ever!

Mar 22, 2008 10:30 AM

Morton Doodslag :

Schnook is a great word.

Mar 22, 2008 07:40 PM

Richard :

Helen;

First my kudos to you for braving posting in a conservative site, I dare say not many of your contempories would do so. However, you lump conservatives into a group. This is very typical of Libs that seem to put all people in pigeon holes.

Yet you do not know me and many of my conservative bretheren.

You say that conservatives worship the almighty dollar. Most of us worship our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus, whose day of reserection we celebrate this very day. We also have no qualms about trying to make a better living in order that we might provide for our families, AND be able to donate to charities.

I for one do not divide people into various groups based along economic, ethinic or racial lines. I do judge! I judge on a persons devotion to ethics, morality, citizenship and other things. I would add here that ALL people judge one another, it is part of what makes us human.

As such I have in the past been a foster parent and an adoptive parent. I have taken children into my home that had little hope and gave them hope. That had fear and freed them from fear. They came from all backgrounds and all races. I made no distinction. Some suffered from mental birth defects. ALL were welcomed in my home and on only two occassions did I fail to be able to help. Of those two occassions I still beat up on myself at times wondering if I could have tried a bit harder.

No Helen, conservatives are not the evil bigot hate mongers that those of you on the left always seem to portray us as, but instead are always on the lookout to help those more unfortunate than ourselves.

We do not believe that government can do a better job than the love and commitment of indivual human beings.

I would point out the failure of some 50 years of Liberal ideology in our educational system. During these times the left has promoted so many schemes that have failed time and again. We have invested trillions of dollars and the results have been a continual slide in the educational scores of our children. Would you agree that your plans have NOT succeeded?

Those of us on this side of the political fence have suggested such ideas as school vouchers, charter schools and have been denounced time and again, but what do you have to fear Helen? Why not try these ideas, should they fail I'd at least be willing to admit it. But to continually try time and again with the same failed policies seems to me to be a road to nowhere.

Mar 23, 2008 07:24 AM

rea :

In other words, it was a state issue, which you think the Florida Supreme Court, the highest authority on Florida state law issues, got wrong.

Mar 23, 2008 09:41 AM

tanstaafl :

I prefer reading fiction as well.

Does Jeffrey Toobin praise Ruth Bader Ginsberg when she falls asleep on the bench ?

Does he think the insane Kelo decision was a good move ?

Or the court's decision (based on looking past the Constitution to "enlightened" European precedent) that a murderer under 18 years of age could never meet the same fate as those he slaughtered ?

Mar 23, 2008 03:51 PM

tanstaafl :

It seems that the Florida SC (all Democrat) wanted to arbitrarily amend the rules in force in its state at the time of the 2004 election.

Much like like (many) Democrats would like to amend their own DNC committee rules relative to validating the delegate votes in Florida and Michigan.

You'd think Fla. would have bent over backwards this election cycle to not having any screw ups. The disenfranchisement of its delegates (well known before the vote) seems perfectly insane.

Mar 23, 2008 04:21 PM

Burt Prelutsky :

Rea--Because the Florida Supreme Court based its decision solely on partisan politics and not existing state law, the Supreme Court was right in stepping in.

The New Jersey Supreme Court, which was also jam-packed with left-wing party hacks, tossed aside state law in order to permit Frank Lautenberg to replace the existing, doomed-to-lose, candidate long after the legal cut-off date. Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed them to get away with that farce. Just because a state Supreme Court makes aruling, it doesn't make it right and it doesn't even make it legal.

Regards, Burt Prelutsky

Mar 23, 2008 06:20 PM