Book Review by Thomas M. Melsheimer
In his vigorous and often trenchant defense of the original understanding theory of constitutional interpretation, Judge Robert Bork offers a decidedly unflattering description of Professor Laurence Tribe:
Laurence Tribe's constitutional theory is difficult to describe, for it is protean and takes whatever form is necessary at the moment to reach a desired result. This characteristic, noted by many other commentators, would ordinarily disqualify him for serious consideration as a constitutional theorist. But Tribe's extraordinarily prolific writings and the congeniality of his views to so many in the academic world and in the press have made him a force to be reckoned with in the world of constitutional adjudication.
Not surprisingly, Bork is not included among the scholars chosen to provide jacket comments to Professor Tribe's latest work, co-authored by Michael C. Dorf, On Reading the Constitution. Indeed, Bork himself becomes a target for Tribe's critique of original understanding as a method of constitutional interpretation.
Tribe and Dorf's work reveals itself as neither protean nor difficult to describe. Although relatively brief, On Reading the Constitution attempts to sketch an “inclusive” method of constitutional interpretation that embraces evolutionary concepts of liberty and equal protection.
About the Author
Thomas M. Melsheimer. Assistant United States Attorney, Northern District of Texas; Adjunct Professor of Law, Southern Methodist University School of Law. B.A., University of Notre Dame, 1983; J.D., University of Texas, 1986.
Citation
66 Tul. L. Rev. 1575 (1992)