When the Dogs Stopped Snapping

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He seems obsessed with certain villains, chiefly Richard Nixon and his Chief Justice, Warren Burger. Nixon, Douglas reports, was so vindictive that he denied a dying Earl Warren the use of Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Douglas scathingly describes Burger as Nixon's "hatchet man" on the court. Burger used to irritate Douglas, in fact, by ticking off all the liberal landmarks of the Warren Court that he wanted to reverse.

Douglas grumbles that under Burger the Constitution was being "put on ice" to make way for the forces of "law-and-order." Such maunderings are sad. In his hundreds of opinions and dissents, Douglas had far more impact on the court and the Constitution than Richard Nixon and Warren Burger put together. It is too bad that Douglas decided not to tell more about it.

—By Evan Thomas