i think will start to see that because of the stigma about people taking the maintenance medications and many who have been mistreated and twelve-step programs, not all but i do think that is starting to change. but we really need for people to realize that morphine is like somebody with diabetes taking insulin ..

the work internationally and i am delighted to be here to introduce to you, as in thomas, a longtime friend of the book festival this is the fifth or sixth time with us. a prolific author of fascinating stories. many best-selling. he is a writer and editor for newsweek for many years, editor for ten years. and has taught writing and journalism at harvard and princeton in our purposes today he has written a fantastic book, lively, sad, funny in places. and thank you for joining us. [applause] >> you have written ten books but just to rattle off a couple of the titles, the wise man, the

man to see, being nixon, the very best man. let me start with the most obvious question, why the subject this time questionin? >> it's exciting to write about men for all these years it's fascinating to read about a woman. in this particular book i have a ton of help from my wife who is sitting over here in lots of ways she's always been involved in my books. she is actually a lawyer and we met at law school. she practiced law i never did. she went to stanford and went to the west and she understood justice o'connor as well or better than i did. this is been the most interesting book for me. and that has something to do with the fact that i have never written about a woman before. >> interesting, let's work chronologically if we could. we have his childhood in a up on

a ranch no electricity, no running hot water, can you talk a little bit about what you learn in new to the record about her childhood? >> judge wilkinson said when i was a child i had a cat, a bobcat. and that's the way it was out there. a hundred and 60000 acres no heat, no running water and it was unbelievably primitive. , vast, beautiful, desolate, her playmates were cowboys and animals that would perk you, or bite you. and she had to learn self-reliance in a hurry. and she could gallop across the prairies with her hair flying and fire a rifle before she is ten years old, driver truck before she was ten. i will tell you the story,

because she liked to tell a story. when she was 15, her job was to take lunch to the roundup. roundup was miles across the period. she gets up at 5:00 a.m. cooks the roast, cooks the cake, gets in the truck, she is a flat tire. it takes her in our to change a tire because she has to jump on the jacks because she's a slender girl. she gets to the roundup and her father says, you're late. and she says i had a flat tire, and he said next time leave earlier. she told the story to her law clerks and the message was clear, no excuses. no excuses on the lazy being. >> they describe nine scorpions in a jar right? she was ultimately at a very early age sent to live with her grandmother. that separation stayed with her and it comes up over and over throughout the book. >> her grandmother was very

unusual feminist. she was about success and doing well but putting gender in that. boys could do well in girls could do well, that was a radical motion in 1938. so she got a lesson on the importance of success and achievement and her grandmother talk too much. she says it increased her powers of concentration. my grandmother's eyes were open her lips were moving. she learned to do for homework saying yes grandma, yes grandma. it was one more thing that toughened her up. >> yet she was four hours from home at that plac age. >> at the age of seven. it's a long train ride from home. of course it made the ranch more romantic because she is far away. >> ultimately, at 16 she goes to stanford?

>> she skipped two classes in stanford is wonderful at pedestrians. she called home utopia. we had access to the correspondence. it utopia. the very first night that she is there she is 16 years old and there's a dance called a jolly up and she walks up to a 23-year-old world war ii veteran and asked him to dance. that was not done then. she falls in love with her and we interviewed him, he is still in love with her his name is andy campbell and he went and visited her on the ranch, it did not work out but that was typical of her. she is independent. maybe when she was a senior in college, her father gave her car. which is pretty grim. so she went out in the parking lot and painted her own parking space, her reserved parking space. >> i like it. it works the big story was that she was at the top of her class,

hugely successful and that's where her story comes in. she was engaged serially. >> yes four times that we know it. she was proposed to four times, engaged two or three times. this is 1951. it is a different era and for a woman you wanted to get engaged before you graduate. it was ring by spring. if you didn't, it's not like you're going to get a good job. she was a very attractive young woman and had lots of suitors. one in particular, this was the one scruple in the book, as i mentioned we had access to correspondence and we were looking for the love letters between sandra and her future husband john o'connor. they were in the papers in the library of congress but we were sure there were some. so we were in the chambers and the secretary took a stand of storage closet in the basement

and there is a box marked correspondent. we said what's in there, and we were allowed to look in there. there were love letters between john and sandra but there were also 14 love letters between sandra and william. later chief justice of the united states supreme court. in one of them he says sandy, will you marry me? they never told anybody. they never told their own families about this. i guess they thought they'd be embarrassed. there was, she strutted along for a few months and ultimately said no and mary john. it ends happily, he married somebody he loved and she married john in on the court the good colleagues. they never told anybody and the

justices were told that they dated at stanford, going to a couple movies. in harry blackmun who sat next to him on the bench and when she came on the bench he turned and said no fooling around. [laughter] >> it can't and wouldn't have worked out for her to be on the supreme court if the relationship had been better and ended a marriage. >> she would've been in phoenix or something. but not a supreme court justice. >> he played a really significant role in getting her on. >> he did. >> perhaps moving to arizona, her career there. she had two careers, one political and one on the bench. she was a political animal. she was a famous networker, you talk this a lot.

>> imagine being a woman in the arizona legislator in 1970. not a female friendly place at all. one thing there is a lot of drinking and stupid horseplay that is now illegal. and she dealt with it in an interesting way. she learned a lot not just from her father who is a tough cowboy but from her mother. her mother was a graceful, feminine figure who always wore dresses in hose and subscribe to vogue and was ladylike. her father would have a drink or two in the evening and bully her mom. and her mom did not take debate. she was not passive, she did not rollover but she would deflected, she kept her dignity. that was important lesson to sandra as anything that she learned from self alliance from

god. this is very useful as a woman in legislature when these guys are being obnoxious to her. she didn't get into any stupid fights. every once in a while she did have to stand up for herself. there was a guy named tom goodwin who is the house appropriations committee chairman. she was the majority, the first woman elected majority leader anywhere ever that is how smart she was. she had a deal with him all the time. he was a jerk. a drunk by 10:00 a.m. drunk. she called him on his drinking and she he said if you were a man i'd punch you on the no's and he said if you were a man you could ouch. [laughter] and she did that very rarely. that's only story like that. but she picked her shot.

she knew when he had to stand up but also when to retreat to fight again another day and avoid controversy. all the while able to make deals, pragmatic, practical, skills that she brought to the supreme court. >> the description you have of the arizona senate is a bit of a mess. in one person he spoke to said that she was promoted in arizona ultimately because they're looking for intelligence and that narrowed the field. >> the majority leader told me that. [laughter] >> how much was she shining because she was the first woman in these cases and how much was it if we could peel back the gender issue between every candidate. >> you never can of course. >> how much was it an organic talent? >> there was no affirmative action. she earned every bit of it. she was smarter than all of them.

she was tougher. she used her husband a little bit. she's bipartisan and they built a swimming pool so they can have four times a year partisan vote parties. this is unlike today. republicans and democrats will get drunk at her swimming pool and her husband -- she could be a little stiff and frosty but he played the role and he knew the types of drinks that everyone liked and he was political himself. it was a way to get things done. she got passed a ton of legislation including, this is a very revealing story. remember the era, the equal rights. she introduced it in the arizona legislation. and then, let it die in committee. the senate was furious with her. what are you doing here, how can

you betray us. they thought she sold out for federal judgeship because she was friends with gary. there is a letter -- but that's not what happened here. but it's important to understanding her. remember phyllis shockley, she had just arrived in phoenix with the whole campaign to defeat the ira and every revolution as a counter revolution and the women's lived the revolution of the late 60s was met with counterrevolution from the antifeminist and philosophically and so she knew that the ira was going to lose on the floor. why pick a fight that you will lose. today she would go on cable tv but then i'm not going to pick a losing fight and instead she

changed every single local law that discriminated against women. every single one. we found a list of them in her hand and she methodically went there changing everyone. she gave up on the big flashy thing because she cannot win. to win all the little battles that really made a difference to women. not small things, property ownership, women can get a credit card, how many hours you can work, not small things for women, she changed every one of them. >> arizona's role in the equal rights amendment redundant or irrelevant. >> local, it doesn't help pass the amendment. the era saw about five states. >> that was a labor-intensive revolution to the problem. pragmatic as you said, also her parenting and role of the mother is really important in all this. it wasn't as if she was going to hand that off, being a mother

she says in several places are quoted, that is the most important thing to her. >> she said that. she went to just pistol conference once in 1982 pretty early in the law was incredibly male and there were few pioneers. when we were in law school they only had significant number of women in 1974. so it's a new new thing. she goes to the judges panel and they talk to us and she said put your family first, they are disappointed. they say no, put your career first. she said that because she meant it. she had three kids, three sons. she gave them a lot of rope but she had three rules. be home by six, don't speak ill of anyone else, and don't hit

your brother. she cooked every recipe in the julia child cookbook one year end friends said sandra do you always have to be perfect at everything. >> page by page she went to the cookbook. >> she is a great role model in many ways. but she's an unrealistic overall model and others because her clerks to say this is great, she would tell clerks put your family first, but do your work. got it night but do your work. go to museums but do your work. take care of your kids, but do your work. you don't sleep apparently but how will it work for us. still it did. it did work for her. and she was a good mom and spent a lot of time with her son. they are great.

>> so not have it all but do it all. on the go all the time. >> she wasted no time. they used to say about her in the legislator, there is no mere time with sandy. >> and apparently there was a great deal of muller time. >> it was all muller time for everybody else. >> as a mother i took on this, where her parenting infuses some of her legal decisions and some of the things she does. after she leaves the senate, takes a break and now on the bench in arizona. i'm going to ask you to tell the story about the divorce case involving greyhound. >> there is a couple that had a 49 greyhound and is a divorced case they have to split up the assets. but they'd don't want to go to this complex thing of value in every single greyhound. it was going to take forever and cost a lot of money. she brought in her common sense when she was putting up a pizza among her sons the rule was, it

two of you make the decision the other gets to choose. >> within 15 minutes, we all use with kids. she was doing that from the bench. now she is setting her sights on the supreme court. and i had no idea and maybe this is naïve of me, how political it gets. and mayb you need to have real champions and should be cultivating them for a long time. >> interestingly along the way one of the people she helped out was william rehnquist who after law school they go to phoenix and become lawyers in phoenix.

they are two couples, and he is going to washington and he was high justice department official and nixon put hands on the court but he is controversial in many ways. he needed help and sandra and her husband john gave it to him the following way because in her files there is a letter from bill rehnquist after he was confirmed to saying to sandra and john, i'm writing you first, because when we were rounding up support for bill they went to the lobbyist and the other lawyers the bakers along the west because bankers are the campaign finance chairman of the senators. and rehnquist wrote you proved once again bakers are more powerful than lawyers. they were shrewd about it. and he was so grateful for this and other things that went

sandra -- when ronald reagan promised to put a woman on the court justice rehnquist secretly lobbied for her with the justice department. saying i know a good woman in arizona and ken starr, another part of his life -- he was once upon a time the top assistant to william smith the attorney general in one of his jobs was to lead the search for a woman justice. he told us that the most effective advocates was william rehnquist. >> a little unusual for somebody who is already on the supreme court. >> i don't know the rules but it's unusual. it was not something he did publicly. >> of course we know supreme court or political bipartisan but it was in the party that was

fascinating because the people nearest were interested in another candidate. >> they figured reagan wasn't serious about his promise. it was a political promise in october and reagan was done in illinois. in the political advisor said promise to put a woman on the court so the true believers in the attorney general thought he was not serious. and getting ready to put bob bork who wa had a potentially thought. and smith said no, no no, the president is serious. he was a woman. james a baker who was the chief of staff said nancy has something to do with it. >> can start and another colleague client to phoenix to interview her and she makes them lunch. >> cold salmon mousse. of course she makes lunch. we sit next to one of them, john

rose and he was still shaking his head as he recounted this tale. we get out there is a hundred degrees she asked all the questions about the constitution, her least favorite course in law school was u.s. constitution. and as a state court of appeal judge she doesn't deal with the constitution. she had to perform for those guys in the bone up to become adjusted. >> absolutely. that move quickly and she heads to washington. 99 - nothing she gets confirmed. >> it looks a little bit wobbly near the end. >> remember in 1980 the moral majority are picking up steam, senator jesse helms, because o'connor had voted to decriminalize abortion as a state legislator this got out and immediately the abortion

crowd was upset about this. it looked like trouble for the reagan administration but reagan did not want to fight social issues early in his presidency and wanted the economy in the military. probably because she was so good at charming. they sent her to jesse helms' office and she wanted. >> let's talk about her relationship and the other justice. is this one that leaks of the page is her relationship with scalia. yes there are various scalia stories. we asked justice stevens, john paul stevens, do you think justice o'connor moved to the left as a justice and he said yes. so i said, why? in his two word answer was justice scalia.

they did not get along. initially they did but when he first came on the court she thought he was vibrant and full of beans and he got sleepy and old by the late '80s and he she thought he would step it up but he suffers from the smartest kid in their own syndrome. as scalia and the room is the court conference room. as scalia when hand of the amino grahams correcting a grammar and what he thought. that did not go down well but it was more than that. in public he would write these dissents that were caustic. ruth bader ginsburg told us that she went to his scalia and said you are hurting yourself you know. you're not as effective as you could be because you're alienating us and fellow justices. he and elliott he justice o'connor by one of her abortion decisions and said this cannot be taken fiercely. he said this in a dissent.

a harsh and gratuitous thing to say about her colleagues. she never dealt with this publicly. she never fought publicly. and when her clerks at the supreme court after opinions the clerks would put in zingers to get scalia, she would take him out. she did not want to pick a public fight. but privately she had a sense of humor about him. he was going on about affirmative action and she said how do you think i got my job. [laughter] >> at one point he refers to her as a politician not a judge. >> right is a very harsh thing to say. >> her relationship with ginsberg, should wait a long time for another woman. >> twelve years. >> that's an interesting relationship as well and a following question before you even have a chance, i'm curious if you've given thought, i'm sure you have, why rbd seems to

have such an incredible fan base. when sandra j o'connor was more muted. she deserves her fan base. she is an historic justice and if you seen the movies i recommend them there great. she is a hero to many people that is legit. but justice o'connor is well known because she is older and o'connor is not a crusader. she is not an activist. she did a ton for women's rights but she did it behind the scenes and she was not out there in the way o'connor was. i like to say that about justice ginsburg that she is the least shy shy person i ever met. in justice o'connor as many of you know has dementia on now. and probably old-timers. and so she got out there and this is the age that we live in.

somebody hasn't a crusader for women will get more attention than uncompromising practices. o'connor is old-school. >> i think that is fair although o'connor did a great deal for women when she was on the court. we will leave you to decide for second come back to that and the challenges to that. she meant toward a number of women clerks. >> she sure did. about half of her clerks. there are over a hundred clerks, half women and she really cared about them. and the men too. she's a little scary to work for because your average supreme court clerk is a very smart person, accustomed to being praised by adults. they get there and they have been editor of the log review, they get there in on the lazy ranch where o'connor grew up not

a whole lot of praise. the clerks put up -- a xerox of her hand and put it on the wall underneath the sign that said if you want on a pat on the back lien here. she was tough and decisive. i spent the first couple of months crying down by the vending machines. but the same clerk became very close to her. as many of them did. she tried to pick their husbands for them. there was one case she told him how many kids to have. >> should mandatory aerobic. >> yes. which had different views of. the men did not. but she cared about the men being in shape two. one of the men told us that he was eating and i.c.e. from cone and she came around the corner and he put the i.c.e. can cone in a drawer. [laughter] >> talk about of her decisions

mississippi university for women. she had an opportunity to write something about gender equality. >> this is an old out of the ginsberg playbook. this is a situation where you have a nursing school in the mississippi university for women only. the gender discrimination was against a man and ginsberg figured out that this works better of a gender discrimination. it shows that it cuts both ways. so that was the fact situation. she got the opinion and was nervous about it of course. she spent a long time working on it and she wrote it narrowly as she always does. and as it happened she and lunch with ruth bader ginsburg who is a judge a couple days before this decision came down.

and not that warm of a lunch actually but when the opinion came down ruth bader ginsburg brought it home and gave it to her husband who looked at her and said bruce, did you write this to ruth and sandra were on the same page. and when justice ginsburg came to the court 12 years later sandra was glad to see her, one thing they put a ladies room and next to the conference room but more than that she had an ally. and although again o'connor is not an activist they were on the same place and a lot of the gender issues. and really this shows how o'connor worked in the vmi case which is an issue of single-sex education and the supreme court struck it down in the bmi case. that case is assigned to justice o'connor and conference. and someone said ruth should have it because of all the work

she had done. ruth ginsburg told us i love her for that. and when the decision was handed down they looked at each other. >> university mississippi for women. >> yes you're right. they were not intimate. they were not cozy, justice kim berg told us, this interested me. not once did justice o'connor come to her chambers to talk about a case. this is part of how court works, they are not hanging around talking to each other talking about cases, they communicate by memo, probably because of precision in the written word that you don't get the conversation. and they do not have to like each other. they have to work together but they do not have to like each other. so there is not that much traveling down the hall to talk to another justice. there are important exceptions to this and people do do it in relationships to form but they are more of the exception than the norm. ginsburg and o'connor -- there is one funny story. they were different people.

o'connor learned to drive a tractor at the age of ten and ginsberg didn't start driving until she was in her 30s when she moved to washington. so in the basement of the supreme court as a garage in justice o'connor messenger told us that justice o'connor excuse me, justice ginsburg crashed into o'connor's car. [laughter] the first time was a hit-and-run. [laughter] so we were at the state justice ginsburg and we save this question for last. and we said, is it true you drove into justice o'connor's car and she said yes it's true. i've never driven again she said. she explained that she was so busy trying to avoid justice kalil's car. >> i can understand that. [laughter]

>> you talk about him not being friends but they have to work together but clarence collins tells an interesting story about o'connor's efforts to promote more. >> this is early and trivial and basic. when sandra o'connor came to the court in 1981 she went to lunch. their lunches once a week. and the justices showed up and half do not show up. and part of it is because it's wearing. and that time the public was booked. in the other justices weren't sure who the leader was. they do not trust each other. but it was not just that. they did not all get along. so sandra o'connor made it her business to get justices to come to lunch. she will go to her chambers and

sit there until they came to lunch. justice thomas was a particular challenge. and remember the anita hill hearings. they were rough, and you can imagine how she felt about that. but i got the story from justice thomas. i was there and i felt hammered. hammered by the hearings. in lonely and put out. and after the conference he is walking down the hall to his chambers and she walks with him. she says those hearings were really damaging and he doesn't know what to say. damaging to him personally, yes. damaging to the court, yes. but he did not say anything. and she does not say anything. but the next day she works and again, in a class he says you have to come to lunch and he does not want to come to lunch. so he doesn't. the next day and the next in the next day. she finally says clarence, you have to come to lunch. he does and he said it changed everything for him. this is jolly and funny and he

fit in and he told me in his chambers the sandra day o'connor was the glue and made this place alive. >> i am going to start in turn this over to you to ask questions in a few minutes. if anybody has questions you could please come to the mic at the front so we can see clearly. in her relationship change in deteriorated over time from having been a future back in stamford days, they first did. >> it's complicated. i don't pretend to know these things and you can't really know the heart. but i do know that when she arrived at the supreme court she was hurt because he did not help her. it is a form place if you are out there in your state court of appeals judge. she was lost in seriously in need of help. he did not help her. part of that, an important part is that his back was killing him and he had to detox the winner because the drugs were so bad.

a part of it i'm guessing was a little help from his clerks. and he did not, he wanted to keep a little bit of distance because of their past relationship. particularly in federalism issues. but over time he differs is a little bit although she becomes more powerful than he is. she becomes a swing vote in the journalist start calling it the o'connell court because she has more books. in 25 years, she cast 330 decisive votes.

that's a lot of power. and he did not like the word swing vote, it implies. the principal person and she had more power than rehnquist had and at the very end is a complicated story. and i don't again, is presumptuous to think they can read minds, but it's 2005 in both of them want to leave the court. justice rehnquist has cancer. he is dying. and sandra day o'connor her husband has alzheimer's. and she has been nursing him for years. bringing to her chamber where he would sleep on the bench and it's gotten to the point that she has to leave. and she she is at the height of her power. she felt her husband have sacrificed for her and moved into washington giving up the law career in phoenix where he was a big man for a successful career in washington and she said he sacrificed for me and i want to sacrifice for him. but they cannot both leave at the same time. and president bush said, who

goes first. they talk back and forth a little bit and he finally says i am staying, and he says okay and get ugly. this spun into a conspiracy theory that rehnquist gained her and forced her off the court and therefore giving reagan two chances then letting her stand democratic. there is a whole conspiracy theory. most conspiracy theories is bogus. but she wanted to leave. she wanted to leave the court. she did not to be persuaded. like most people with cancer she had been totally forthcoming. about how sick he was, and she sat at his funeral and said he'd like to make small bets and he made a bet that he was going to

live and i think that is a true story. >> she does not get to leave on her own because of the case we should talk about, bush and gore. in the timing of that. >> you all know bushby court. as the most controversial thing in her career by far. just to quickly mind you that 2000, bush versus gore is a tie in florida and bush wins by a few votes and is terrified by the republicans. >> by hanging chad, remember hanging chad. >> the certifies the bush victory but there is a recount going on and it becomes like all things, a law case, the supreme court by a vote of 5 - forth the supreme court stops the count and the effect is to elect bush. the five are all considered it

republicans. the four liberals. it looks like a brazenly political decision and people are really upset about this. maybe some are still upset about. and so it looks like raw politics, republicans vote five, democrats vote for, that's it. so what was she doing. she is right in the middle of this. she is in the five. she is a lifelong republican. republican politician. but what was going on is this, she was a practical person. she was looking down the road and will happen at the recount if it continues. suppose gore got ahead then there would be two sets of electors. the elector certified by republican secretary of state and gore electors. but there is actually a law for what happens. if there are two sets of electors. it goes to congress. the house has one vote in the senate has one vote. the house was going to be republican, the senate was going to be democratic thai. in the case of a tie the law, it

stipulates that if the tie is broken by the governor of the state his last name was bush. so she thanks banana republic, his brothers going to elect him president. she decides we will get this over with. she was impatient. we will get this over with now we will not let the case go on and come back to congress. she is looking down the road and more than any other supreme court justice over time she looked at the practical consequences of the supreme court decision. she cared about the consequences. the consequence in this case was going to be an. that's why she did what she did. >> she said half of the country will hate me. that is a warning she told her son. after the country is going to hate me. and they did and although she is somebody who is very decisive

and has few regrets on this one, this when she did. she was uncomfortable being asked about it in a 12 years later she told the chicago tribune, maybe we should not have taken the case. maybe we should decide to buy and let it go on. >> you mentioned public speaking events. >> events uncharacteristically defensive on her part. >> but for her personal signing she did not feel, you do a great job at this in the book, but the next morning, now that we have another republican president resign, retire because it would look like she had been in the tank for bush so she could leave her vacancy to a republican president. she had to wait and leave she wanted to leave but she had to wait. >> my prior life i was a journalist. and then the newsweekly broke the story that on election

night, john o'connor her husband was watching tv and it look like gore was going to win and he said this is terrible. we wanted to resign, she wanted to resign and oh my god, this story got in the paper and in the wall street journal, and i wrote the story actually. i was a rewrite person. and so that became, she wrote it for bush so that her husband could resign. it was the exact opposite. she told her family that once bush had one they cannot resign because it would look bad. it would look like she voted for bush so they could resign. so it basically tractor on the court for another five years before she was able to resign. >> the love story between o'connor and john o'connor has women all the way through the book. you do a beautiful job and the metaphor for the love story is a

dance floor. you come back to it in several places and there was this brilliant answer -- >> phoenix at the biltmore hotel. they would give them drinks because they were good for business. watching these couple dance. sandra was interesting about this. she was sociable. and she like to dance. she was the most sociable justice in history. that may be a low bar,. [laughter] but she was, and she went all the time. she was always in the social page and the style section. and why, partly because she wanted to, but really for john. because john was a great dancer and a great storyteller and he gave him a chance to shine. his career was not going well but in the evening he was the big man in the expression, the lion, he was a lion and she

would ask him to tell stories and she told me i would've gone home earlier i to read a thousand pages a day and it cut into that and made it harder for her to do that. she did this for him. >> he was fantastic supporter of her and she made that clear marrying the right person. >> that is the key to all things. and now we have a question from the floor. [inaudible] >> i hate to interrupt the conversation with a stupid question, a social one that is silly, is it true the story with john riggins of the redskins. >> and something you may remember. john riggins the great redskins hero at a congressional dinner had too much to drink and passed out under sandra's table but before he did he said, what is shaking sandy davey. and john o'connor's diary, this

is in there and he did describes stepping over reagan's body as a leave. they were amused by it and in fact john riggins was in a play and they brought him flowers and roses at the door. this is a joke. and this is typical and they were too offended, she had been an arizona legislator. >> my other question is more serious, i want to know if i'm hyperventilating a little bit, i am concerned about the way the supreme court has changed in recent years, the proposal sounds kinda good of navy instead of lifelong justices nominated at certain states for 18 year terms and in that way each president will nominate one or more et cetera. and we won't have the situation

where the supreme court can look in a certain direction for the next 30 to 40 years. >> my opinion of that, or hers? >> defined hyperventilating, because it sounds good to me. >> maybe i have been influenced by her but i think it is dangerous once you start messing with the supreme court. it's an invitation to mass and ways that could have unintended consequence history i'm channeling her, i waited to talk about this but this is the way she thought. being wary of on intended consequent this. her decisions were unlimited, a narrow, and limited to the facts. arguing the other way for a second, she did believe in this is interesting that the supreme court was not the last word. we have an image of the court, the last word, the final

judgment. she fought on tough issues like abortion and affirmative action and religion. the court was engaged in a long-term conversation with the other branch of government. and she would send a case unresolved back to the legislator because she wanted the system to keep working the tough issue. in her standard of the abortion case, she was personally, she ended the vote that preserved for 25 years but the way she did it was adopting the standard going undue burden meaninglessness can be restriction abortion but they cannot put an undue burde burden abortion rights. what does undue burden mean? it depends. there's been a lot of litigation

and they hate that. and they're angry about it. and it is too unclear that the statement too far in the invitation. but the alternative, i think she believed and she was right that they could've gone down altogether. she saved them from the case in 1992 to compromise. and that is the way she is. she inched things along the by bit. so maybe, she would say, the law evolved slowly, and maybe our structures could evolve as well, and maybe they would approve the running plan. to have limited terms. but to a real slow and carefully. >> i need to ask you question about roby way, i think you have questions from the group, but it really is the case that she saved roe v. wade but was such

narrow precise decision that it really was like hunting. >> it depends on your point of view. certainly, the feminists were mad at her and they would demonstrate outside. but again you have to look at the context in a 1982, with the edition of justice kennedy to the court, there were five votes to get rid of roe v wade. justice kennedy said he was a drug stop. and that's a strong thing to say about a case. chief justice rehnquist and conference thanks he has five votes to overturn roe v wade. and by putting together she outsmarted them she put togeth

together, talk about being political. she put together the trickle of justice souter. that was to preserve roby way and she recognized kennedy although he had been very close to voting with scalia, catholic and similar politics, scalia had been patronizing and condescending to kennedy. he was sick of it. period she sat honest and put together an opinion in a way and she let kennedy do this rhetorical stuff. it was a rhetorical opinion in the kind of thing that she hated and she let him read it. and she results with a narrow standard because she would not get to the vote otherwise. if it wasn't preserve roby way he would not of been on board. >> it was good to know if you thinking and the balance of kennedy's ability. because scalia had been unkind

and reassuring. >> you are surprised to know that there supreme court is human. >> not surprised. another question. >> you mentioned in passing her relationship with barry goldwater would be pretty interesting to hear about. >> he one set of her, you're the best woman i ever met. they were, she was a big power in arizona and people think of goldwater's of being in extremis, and the 64 convention and extremism of no vice in the other. in extremism -- liberty is no vice. and we think of that as an extreme but in arizona, goldwater was reformed politics.

democrats in the party in power were corrupt. the republicans were the reformers in the 60s. so to be a goldwater republican in arizona meant something different from what we think today. she was a goldwater republican in that sense. and they were good friends and neighbors in paradise valley and friends always there. >> so the story has a widely known sad ending. her husband and great love of her life dies in a home leaving another patient and it's actually his wife, no longer recognizing sandra which is heartbreaking. the sandra day o'connor -- first name basis had been so fearful about having family member suffers with it that she had a clerk, he read about this, check in with her once a year to let

her know whether he thought she was losing her edge. >> now the president of syracuse university, he was a clerk in the mid- 80s. she said i want you to tell me every year how my doing. she did not like the idea that justice was leaving aside dementia. just getting old and slow. a long history in the supreme court. justice frankford and justice douglas stay too long because he did not want to give up their power. she was worried about that that she had a clerk check-in. she did fear her mother had alzheimer's and her aunt. and her husband. she feared it terribly and it was her greatest fear. it became. she was diagnosed in 2014. before that her husband, this is a heartbreaking story, she leaves to support to take care of her husband and he's in a home and they form a mistake attachment. he has a girlfriend named kay, and he would be sitting there in kay and say to sandra, i want you to be my wife turning to

kate, and she is publicly said i am happy for him because he had been depressed and now he's happier. privately a broken heart. of course it did. in typical, she would come in and you'd be holding hands with kay and she would come down and sit down and hold his other hand. >> you have another question? >> you mentioned that justice o'connor was an activist but what was the field from people who know her or yourself from your knowledge what was the legacy she wanted to leave behind whether the processor issue for what is she in vision in her role. >> she really, the site for the law, she did care about her kind of law as pragmatic case-by-case by her larger issue are two

things. she wanted to be a model for women. and she wanted to be a bridge into the traditional women, she did not wear pantsuits back in the day, she was careful not to be a woman, she had a poem about a pilgrim who builds a bridge so that others may cross them. the pilgrim never crosses it themselves but others too. she saw herself as a bridge for generations of women and she was the first and long before madeleine albright or hillary clinton or any of them or with ginsberg, she rehearsed. by far the most powerful woman in america had ever had. she used her power on the court. she did care about her part. she once said, it's in her husband's diary after she had been there for two years he wrote in his diary, she liked being in the catbird seat being the fifth vote on the other majority. she likes power and she did care about her legacy of preserving abortion rights.

and preserving affirmative action and she was disappointed when her successor was justice alito. he never spoke ill of anybody but she was critical of him because she feared on abortion rights would undermine her legacy. >> one of the great quotes, ought to paraphrase, somebody was applauding her for being the first and she said it is much more important that i'm not the last. >> it's good to be the first but you don't want to be the last. >> thank you so much. this is a fantastic book. really enjoyable to read. [applause] [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] >> every year booktv covers book fairs and festivals around the country.

nearly 400 to date. here's a look at some of the events coming up.