that is actually the headline of dahlia lithwick's brilliant new piece for slate in which she confesseswho has spent most of her time covering the supreme court while her vision was distorted by the mythology of the supreme court. dahlia lithwick has, of course, always been wiser and more insightful, and wider ranging in her coverage of the supreme court than most supreme court reporters, and so she loves herself in as part of the problem more out of modesty than reality. it's true that the biggest stories about the supreme court have been broken, not by supreme court reporters, but by investigative reporters, discovering the billionaire lifestyle clarence thomas is able to enjoy, from a benefactor whose lawyer told the senate judiciary committee today he will not testify about exactly how much money he has spent on buying clarence thomas 's friendship. as harlan crow spent more on clarence thomas that he has spent on acquiring the positions of adolf hitler, including his tea pot, would she discussed here last night. as harlan crow spent more on clarence thomas that a costume to by adol

amy: dahlia lithwick, if you can respond. ent, historically, where for some reason, congress has taken the posture that they cannot do anything to regulate the court. the court conveniently takes the same posture that this is a separation of powers issue. it is important to remember, and a professor at ut austin have been making the point for weeks, congress has regulated the courts conduct for centuries. congress has a term of the jurisdiction of the justices for a long time. they forced the justices to travel around the country and here cases. congress sets the number of seats on the court. the notion that congress has no business intervening but how the judiciary works because that would be a separation of powers conflict is simply wrong. what you were hearing from senator durbin there was an understanding that now is not the time to stand back and let the courts say more or less what you talked about in your last segment, the judiciary as a monarchy, cannot be regulated by anybody else but itself. between the hearing we ha

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and dahlia lithwick, slate senior legal correspondent and author of "lady justice." nina totenberg, let me start with you. is the court in crisis? >> well, it's in a very bad and dysfunctional situation, i think. and i've covered the court for a long, long time. and i don't think i've ever seen a court so at odds. and the best example is they had a fairly minor, in the greater scheme of things, decision a couple of weeks ago, and there were five opinions. there was no opinion for the court. there were three opinions on one side and two opinions in dissent. >> what does that tell you? >> it tells me that they don't like and trust each other, that the chain is broken and they're not getting along. and when you can't get along, you can't reach some sort of consensus on most things. >> laura, what does it look like to you? >> well, it's interesting because that's what's going on internally and what's going on externally is another sort of crisis of its own sort of devising on public legitimacy and the idea of whether it's an institution that the public can trust and feel

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. >> dahlia lithwick has a fascinating piece out, basically arguing that one of the i guess weaknessesnybody in the white house, the way your press corps runs around and has instant access to you and your colleagues at all times in washington and in your district, that one of the problems there isn't a supreme court press corps that covers the justices and their decisions and everything around them the same way the other branches of government are covered. what's your feeling about that? >> i couldn't agree more. i think that it's a little bit like the supreme court bar, the people who practiced before the supreme court. they're the ones who know best what is going on, that they make their livelihood from the good will of the supreme court. and so like old-fashioned years, it's hard to get them to say anything about the court. the supreme court prides itself on access and has not taken a hard look. there has been nothing like the kind of inquiry made that should have been into the dark money spending behind the advertisements that put the justices on the court, where the federalist soc