Synopsis

What you see is often not what you get – especially in the field of law. And that goes for Presidents of the United States in picking the people they want to serve as Justice on the U. S. Supreme Court. For instance….

When a Supreme Court Justice:

Is having illicit sex in his judicial chambers… Is thrown into debtor’s prison – twice… Is involved in the shocking “Petticoat Affair (ala the recent John Edwards case)”… Is recipient of a lifetime membership in the Ku Klux Klan… Is saying the president who nominated him should die… Is found to be lying about his military service… Is calling his President “a crippled son-of-a-bitch”… Is guilty of absolute and provable miscarriage of justice… Is voting to enhance his President’s chances of impeachment… Is deemed “partially deranged” by a colleague…

…a President might have second thoughts about a Justice’s qualifications for service on the Highest Court in the Land.

Also, when a president later says of his nominee(s) that: He’s “a dumb son-of-a-bitch…” His nomination was the “biggest damn fool thing I ever did…” He has “less backbone than a banana” and… His own four Supreme Court nominees – along with the other five members – are “bastards”…

…you know the president is having regrets about some of those nominations. Second Thoughts (using the exact language of presidents and justices as cited above) tells these stories and others about the “nine scorpions in a bottle,” as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes called his brethren.

Those woes and others herein are part of President Truman’s effort to “find out what make Justices of the Supreme Court tick.”