Yet questions remain: Why is the president so unpopular? (He vetoes every spending bill, which would surely enrage Congress, but shouldn’t upset the public.) Why does Pepper take all the heat for every split decision? (Four other justices vote with her, and the court had a history of 5-4 decisions before her arrival.) Why does Buckley think it’s enough to give his characters funny names (Blyster Forkmorgan, Esquire, et al.) rather than develop them?Įven Buckley fans might suspect that he’s begun to crank them out a little too quickly.Ī novel of pizza parlors, skateboarding, tattoos and piercings-needless to say, it’s a portrait of the ’90s. After a politician-turned-TV-actor challenges for the presidency, the novel inevitably reaches its climax as the contested race is left to the court to decide. She also becomes estranged from her husband, a reality-show producer, and involved with the chief justice, whose wife left him for a woman immediately after the court sanctioned gay marriage.
#CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY SUPREME COURTSHIP TV#
Instead of relying on the common sense and colloquial language that have made her such a hit as a TV personality, she tries her best to apply legal precedent befitting the Supreme Court, thus alienating many of her fellow justices and most of the public. After she sails through the confirmation process, both the new justice and the novel seem to lose their way. With his popularity at an all-time low and with no intention of running for a second term, the president then dares the Senate to reject his third nominee, America’s most popular jurist, Pepper Cartwright of television’s highly rated Courtroom Six.
#CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY SUPREME COURTSHIP MOVIE#
On a Supreme Court as divided as the country, President Donald Vanderdamp finds his first two nominees to fill a crucial vacancy rejected on the shakiest of grounds (one wrote a grade-school review of To Kill a Mockingbird and found parts of the movie “kind of boring”).
The satiric scenario has plenty of potential, but sketchy characters and slapdash plotting result in a split decision. Supreme Courtship is another classic Christopher Buckley comedy about the Washington institutions most deserving of ridicule.As before, Buckley ( Boomsday, 2007, etc.) blurs the line distinguishing the historical, the plausible and the preposterous amid the political circus of anything-goes Washington. Soon, Pepper finds herself in the middle of a constitutional crisis, a presidential reelection campaign that the president is determined to lose, and oral arguments of a romantic nature. Will Pepper, a straight-talking Texan, survive a confirmation battle in the Senate? Will becoming one of the most powerful women in the world ruin her love life? And even if she can make it to the Supreme Court, how will she get along with her eight highly skeptical colleagues, including a floundering Chief Justice who, after legalizing gay marriage, learns that his wife has left him for another woman. After one nominee is rejected for insufficiently appreciating To Kill A Mockingbird, the president chooses someone so beloved by voters that the Senate won't have the guts to reject her - Judge Pepper Cartwright, the star of the nation's most popular reality show, Courtroom Six. President of the United States Donald Vanderdamp is having a hell of a time getting his nominees appointed to the Supreme Court.