In the October issue of Vanity Fair magazine, former Supreme Court law clerks from the court's 2000-01 term speak out, under cover of anonymity, about what they saw behind the scenes during the fateful case of Bush v. Gore
In an article titled The Path to Florida, writers David Margolick, Evgenia Peretz and Michael Shnayerson recount the views of former clerks to liberal justices who opposed the ruling. Those clerks contend that the decision was an exercise in partisanship by conservative Republican justices.
The buzz surrounding this piece centers less on the article's content than the fact that those who worked for the justices have broken their vow of silence. Some have called this a 'whistle-blowing'.
According to an article in Sunday's Washington Post, most of the criticism in the Vanity Fair piece is aimed at Justices Antonin Scalia, Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy, all of whom voted in favor of Bush. Scalia is depicted bullying Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg into watering down her dissenting opinion. O'Connor is described as emotionally fixated on stopping a recount and Kennedy as overly influenced by his right-wing clerks.