NPR's TERRY GROSS BLOWS SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR INTERVIEW

With few exceptions, the consensus of comments about Terry Gross' interview yesterday of former Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Sandra Day O'Connor,  is that she was testy, uncooperative and rude, while Ms. Gross was the heroic interviewer, soldiering on with grace and tact despite the Justice’s taciturn demeanor. I disagree. The interview was a fiasco because Ms. Gross failed to do her homework and to stick to the subject of the interview, namely the book.
Had she done her homework, Ms. Gross would have known that it is inappropriate to ask a former Supreme Court Justice questions a) implying that anything other than an objective interpretation of the Constitution “informed her decisions,” (rather than on the basis of being a woman and a mother) b) asking her to reconsider or revisit decisions she had made, c) raising the possibility of her disagreeing with anything the Court is presently doing or has done since she resigned. Justice O’Connor’s terse answers reflected her justifiable impatience with Ms. Gross’ inept line of questioning.
Moreover, Ms. Gross failed to concentrate on the substance of the book, clearly stated as “Stories from the history of the Supreme Court.” Had she invited Justice O’Connor to expand on the anecdotes and insights contained in the book, I am confident she would have found the Justice to be both loquacious and affable, as she was on Jon Stewart’s show later in the day. As it was, Ms. Gross grasped for a journalistic coup that would make headlines by inveigling the Justice to stray from accepted protocol into controversial territory, and got righteously slapped down for it. 
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Justice O’Connor is a towering, profoundly influential figure in American jurisprudence, who carried her burden of office with grace, integrity, intelligence, sensitivity and love of country -- qualities she continues to demonstrate in retirement. Those who have decided not to read her book on the basis of Ms. Gross’ inept interview would do well to reconsider.