Although he was obviously a mixed success as a politician,

he's one of the pristine and shining examples in American history

of a president who approaches the office like a judge

and measures all of his actions against the Constitution.

Hi, and welcome back to Amicus Slate's podcast about the courts and the law and the rule of law.

I'm Dahlia Lithwick, and I cover many, if not most of those things for Slate.com.

And while the Supreme Court is on break this summer and the political machinery around Justice Kennedy's successor grind into overdrive,

I thought we'd zoom out for a week or two and explore some of my favorite writing by some of the very best thinkers about the law and the

history of the law and the courts. So I want you to think of the next couple of weeks as

kind of an amicus summer book club because the obvious choice for beach reading is a book like

this, a scorching biography of William Howard Taft. No, I'm not joking. Scorching may not be the word, but

fascinating and surprising really are applicable here. Jeff Rosen is the author of five books,

and his new biography of Taft is part of the American President's series. We had Jeff on last

year to discuss his biography of Justice Brandeis. But in addition to being an

amazing writer of judicial biography, Jeff Rosen is president and CEO of the National Constitution

Center. He teaches law at George Washington University. He's a contributing editor at the Atlantic

and most important for us. He is the host of Amicus's sister podcast,

We the People, which makes him kind of my cousin. So welcome back to Amicus Jeffrey Rosen.

Thank you. It is wonderful to be back and to talk to your great Amicus listeners.

So Jeff, I have to just confess right off the bat that William Howard Taft is an improbable choice for someone to dig deep in. Most of us don't know anything about him. I think we all know he was too big for his bathtubs. He was girthy, I think is the locution that I'm going to put forward.

Very reluctant politician.

Not somebody who leaps to mind as a singularly important president.

...