Supreme Courtship - Buckley

Supreme Courtship, Large Print Edition. By Christopher Buckley.  NY: Twelve, Hachette Book Group, 2008.  Hardback, ISBN  0-446-57982-3/ 978-0-446-57982-7, $24.99, 288 pages  http://www.twelvebooks.com/   The president chooses Texas Judge Pepper Cartwright as his nominee, and the fun starts and the Texasisms grow throughout the clear prose.  Buckley's Pepper, you see, stars in the nation's most popular reality show, "Courtroom Six."  But she's also patently competent and playing politics comes naturally for Pepper.  High-level advisors advise "no," but Chief Executive Vanderdamp (sic) wishes to push her into Congress' face.  All this is complicated by Pepper's contract with the TV show, the shaky marriage, and a grandfather who warmly supports his darling daughter and doesn't need to shoot anybody in the process.  Her first case on the Supreme bench is about "an idiot bank robber suing the maker of his gun." All the while there's a presidential race, a contemptuous Chief Justice, a constitutional amendment and an election crisis clattering around in the background and foreground.  A wonderful read for those enjoying word-play and wit and the slow skewering of Washingtonians (the author is a Buckley, remember).