What you see is not often 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. When a Supreme Court Justice: Is having illicit sex in his judicial chambers Is thrown into debtors prison twice Is involved in the shocking Petticoat Affair 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 Presidents chances of impeachment Is deemed partially deranged by a colleague a President might have second thoughts about a Justices qualifications for service on the Highest Court in the Land. Also, when a president later says of his nominee(s) that: Hes 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 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 Trumans effort to find out what make Justices of the Supreme Court tick. Here's what some people are saying about "Second Thoughts": At Amazon (dot) com, there's a listing for Second Thoughts: Presidential Regrets with their Supreme Court Nominations. Among the Customer Reviews for the book, is this one: Refreshing. I believe I've read one too many dry legal tomes. 'Second thoughts' went down smoothly. The author hits just the right tone to lubricate the reader's travel through time from an amusing perspective. The narrator employs judicious use of tropes to liven up the material, and refrains from overindulging in speculative fiction. I highly recommend this to ALL the constitutional law profs out there as a MUST for their booklists. Another reviewer wrote: Harper doesn't get mired in partisan politics. Like the good reporter he once was, he just tells it like it was. He has a highly disciplined focus on the basic "second thoughts" theme. His book reveals legal savvy and is well documented. And, said a lawyer who read Second Thoughts: Presidential Regrets with their Supreme Court Nominations, The book is very historical and beautifully written. It actually would be good for history as well as law classes. Where he gets all his info is amazing."