Rosen on Biskupic on Scalia

Today's Sunday NYT Book Review features a review by Jeffrey Rosen on Joan Bikuspic's new biography of Scalia, American Original: The Life and Constitution of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. 

Rosen calls Biskupic's book "impressively balanced and well reported," which shouldn't be surprising to anyone who has read Biskupic's previous biography of Sandra Day O'Connor.

Rosen writes:

By letting Scalia describe himself in his own words, Biskupic offers a profile of a man who, at the age of 73, sometimes appears smug and self-satisfied — adjectives he has used to describe critics of using torture in the war on terror — but not especially self-aware. Scalia thinks of himself as a pleasant fellow, and Biskupic reports that he was dumbfounded when Jon Stewart, in response to a Daily Show guest who suggested that John Roberts was nicer than Scalia, replied, “Aren’t we all nicer than Scalia?”

The review is worth a read, and is persuasive that the book will likewise be worth a read.

RR