Cliff Sloan Quotes
There is no more moving a professional relationship than that between a law clerk and a Supreme Court justice. As a place to work, the court is unique in its intimacy and intensity.
Sloan, Cliff. "My Old Boss, Justice Stevens." Slate, 9 Apr. 2010.
She had been asked how well prepared she was to be a Supreme Court Justice. Many Justices believe that the post is so unique that no amount of lower court experience can prepare one for the Supreme Court.
G. Harold Carswell was nominated to a vacancy on the Supreme Court by President Nixon. The nominee did not have a reputation as a distinguished jurist. Senator Hruska defended the nomination:
David Souter was an outstanding Supreme Court Justice—a lifelong Republican appointed by a Republican President. He did not vote the way Erickson thought he should. There was never any hint of any kind of sexual problem with Souter, and why Erickson chose to slander him with these descriptors is not known. One unproven theory is that some Souter votes and opinions upheld the First Amendment freedoms of pornographers and therefore by supporting these practices being promulgated, Erickson thought that he believed they were worthy themselves. Fortunately, Souter was so well thought off that only a few right wing extremists took these lies for what they were. What is important about this quotation is that Erickson did not lose any standing within the Conservative wing of the Republican party as a result of these rash slanders that were in themselves in terrible taste and crudely expressed. The Daily Telegraph of London put Erickson on its "List of Most Influential US Conservatives", giving him a rank of 69th most influential in 2007 and 65th in 2010. This crude lie was made in 2009. The Republican Party traditionally would never tolerate this kind of rhetoric but after the Southern Strategy, the party grew more and more extremist in its views and more and more vicious and unethical in its political methods.
TR had a Supreme Court where a conservative block was in the majority and declared a number of his key reforms as unconstitutional. The same thing happened to FDR as well. Since Supreme Court justices had lifetime tenure most presidents and congresses have to deal with a court that has the political makeup and political philosophy of previous administrations by which they were appointed. Reform and change presidents tend to see the Supreme Court as obstructionist.
Clifford Sloan is an American diplomat who served as Special Envoy for Guantanamo Closure at the United States Department of State. Sloan is currently a Dean's Visiting Scholar at Georgetown University Law Center and retired partner for Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates. Previously, Sloan was the publisher of Slate magazine.
