An Affectionate Portrait of Bill Rehnquist, Regular Guy

The late Chief Justice William Rehnquist was one of the most prominent, influential, and controversial conservative intellectuals of our time. In his new book, Rehnquist: A Personal Portrait of the Distinguished Chief Justice of the United States (Simon & Schuster), Herman J. Obermayer, a former newspaper publisher, offers a warm and personal behind-the-scenes memoir of his long friendship with the man he calls "Bill."

President Nixon nominated Rehnquist to the Supreme Court in 1971, when he was a bright young Barry Goldwater protégé from Arizona working in the Justice Department, reliably conservative, yet relatively obscure. (On the Watergate tapes, Nixon is heard referring to him as "Renchberg.") Rehnquist would serve on the court for the next four decades, until his death in 2005, presiding as the chief justice from 1986 through 2005.

Presidents, conservative and liberal, are sometimes disappointed in their Supreme Court picks, but President Nixon and President Reagan (who elevated Rehnquist to chief justice), could not have been disappointed in their man -- in Rehnquist, what you saw was what you got. Rehnquist believed in restricting the reach of federal power, and enhancing the power of states.

He was against affirmative action, supported capital punishment, took a narrow view of separation of church and state (believing that the Establishment Clause should be understood merely as a prohibition on outright government favoritism of one religion over another), was not an enthusiastic defender of freedom of speech or press, was opposed to the Supreme Court's decision granting gays and lesbians the right to engage in consensual sexual relationships, stood against abortion rights, and took an expansive view of presidential power, particularly in matters relating to national security and foreign affairs.

Obermayer's book gracefully intertwines many of the most significant themes, cases, and events surrounding Rehnquist's tenure on the Supreme Court with revealing glimpses of Rehnquist the man. The book, which is as much a portraiture of friendship as of a famous figure, offers no pretense of objectivity.

Drawing on Ralph Waldo Emerson, Obermayer describes his friendship with Rehnquist as marked by trust, warmth, and candid conversation, untainted by any possibility of career or financial benefit for either person, nourished by "symmetry," a shared matrix of values, ages, tastes in art, literature, friends, and amusements, and the freedom to walk away at any time, so that the continuation of the friendship was always entirely voluntary, without preconditions.

The book presents Rehnquist as an essentially modest and affable man, unpretentious in his habits, an almost "regular guy" who enjoyed a beer, a football game, poker, small bets on sports and politics, books, movies, and music. The portrait rings true, and helps explain Rehnquist's reputation for building strong collegial relationships while on the Supreme Court, relationships that bore no relationship to ideology.

If Rehnquist's unyielding conservative opinions pulled no legal punches, they rarely threw personal punches. Much like the storied friendship of Sens. Edward Kennedy and Orrin Hatch, Rehnquist was known to have a cordial friendship with Justice William Brennan Jr., one of the court's most stalwart liberals, as well as with Justice William O. Douglas, who shared Rehnquist's love of the American West.

Rehnquist was a passionate amateur historian and successful author, writing with an easy and engaging style. His forays into history would often presage history that Rehnquist would himself make.

Rehnquist was a student of early American impeachment trials -- and would later preside over the Senate impeachment trial of President Clinton. In his book All Laws but One: Civil Liberties in Wartime, Rehnquist explored the Latin phrase "Inter Arma Silent Leges," ("In time of war, all laws are silent.") "It is neither desirable nor is it remotely likely," he wrote, "that civil liberty will occupy as favored a position in wartime as it does in peacetime . . . .The laws will not be silent in time of war, but they will speak with a somewhat different voice."

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Rehnquist would preside over Rasul v. Bush, the first of a series of Supreme Court cases to deal with the fate of persons detained at Guantanamo Bay as enemy combatants.

Through it all, the Rehnquist that Obermayer describes never lost the common touch. Anticipating the possibility that the outcome of the presidential election between Vice President Al Gore and Gov. George Bush could ultimately be contested in his court as lawyers battled over hanging chads and recounts, Rehnquist wrote to his friend that he felt ethically obliged to cancel all outstanding bets on the outcome of the Florida vote.

The two men also toyed with the impish fantasy of bringing television to the Supreme Court on the model of football broadcasts, with a charismatic former governor or senator playing the role of John Madden, doing chalkboard analysis and instant replays of critical moments during oral arguments, which would be scheduled for prime time, transforming the justices into celebrity superstars and folk heroes.

The reality is that Rehnquist, if a folk-hero to the right and folk-demon to the left, somehow managed to remain "just plain folks" in his relationships -- a nice lesson for any ideology.

Rod Smolla is the dean and Roy Steinheimer Professor of Law at the Washington and Lee University School of Law. He also serves on the board of Media General, the parent company of The Times-Dispatch.