Men in Black: How the Supreme Court Is Destroying America by Mark R. Levin



Audiobook
7 disks
approx. 8 hours
read by Jeff Riggenbach

Men in Black: How the Supreme Court Is Destroying America is written by Mark Levin, talk show host, author, former member of the Reagan Administration, part of the Landmark Legal Foundation, National Review Online and numerous other endeavors. Levin offers a compelling argument that shows that the Supreme Court has overstepped its authority from its beginnings.

Levin's arguments are presented in classic Levin style - direct and in your face. He opens with nearly an hour of biographies of various flawed and suspect court members that have served throughout the years. The purpose? To demonstrate that Supreme Court Justices are not legal gods, but flawed men and women who are susceptible to the same temptations of the elected politicians of the other branches to mis-use the machinery of government.

Mark Levin
He then lays out a history of the court's more questionable decisions and argues that the court does not have the authority to create law, merely nullify it (if that). He finishes with a survey of the current hot button topics that the court has been visiting (abortion, election law, campaign finance reform, legal rights for terrorists). I don't agree with all of Levin's conclusions but they are vigorously argued and interesting nonetheless.

The last section is the strongest except for one area: he lists 50 "section 527" political groups, including how much they brought in and how much they spent. In the audiobook format, this list takes more than 12 minutes to read through - 12 minutes of a list! Yikes, was it ever boring.

The other problem is the reader of the audiook. He mispronounces the names of Supreme Court Justices and, strangely, the author of the book at the beginning of every disk. Riggenbach pronounces Levin like "leaven" when Levin clearly pronounces it "Luh-vin" on his radio show. The long list and the names drop a 4 star audiobook to a 3 star book.

Introduction by Rush Limbaugh. Epilogue by Ed Meese.

Recommended for conservatives interested in Constitutional history.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Men in Black.

 I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5.

 Reviewed on November 6, 2009.

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