We at The Ninth Justice are collecting examples of memorable things that have been said in connection with Supreme Court appointments, and we hereby solicit suggestions to make our short list a bit longer.

The first category we have identified consists of comments from prospective nominees who wanted no part of the job.

Our earliest example is John Johnson, a Supreme Court litigator. According to an October 8, 1957 letter from Dean Acheson to President Truman, Johnson explained his decision to turn down President Grover Cleveland's offer of a nomination by saying: "I would rather talk to the damned fools than listen to them." (We have not yet learned exactly when this was. Cleveland was president from 1885-1889 and 1893-1897.)

Gov. Mario Cuomo of New York was a bit more polite in explaining his own lack of interest when President Clinton was seriously considering him for a nomination in 1993. In an interview with the Albany Times-Union, Cuomo described how the Court looked from the perspective of a big-time political figure: "They put you in this big room. They slam this mahogany door shut. You're entombed. When the World Trade Center collapses, you can't go on television and tell people not to worry."

Clinton still wanted to add a political figure of stature and broad experience to the Court, whose members were then drawn mainly (and now entirely) from relatively cloistered federal courts of appeals. So when another vacancy came along in 1994, Clinton offered the nomination to Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell.

Mitchell surprised a lot of people by saying no. He cited his need to stay on as majority leader to help push the Clinton health care plan through Congress. But that may not have been his only reason, according to Newsweek. Close friends said that the 60-year-old divorcee, who also announced in 1994 that he would not seek a fourth Senate term, wanted to "live a little" and was "at heart a bon vivant" who yearned to have more of a social life, to work less, and to earn a lot of money.

The next category of memorable quotes includes unflattering comments by presidents and others about nominees.

President Theodore Roosevelt appointed one of the Court's most legendary giants, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. But Roosevelt developed a low opinion of Holmes early in his tenure, when the new justice voted against Roosevelt's trust-busting in a big antitrust case in 1904. "I could carve out of a banana a judge with more backbone than that," the president raged. Not one to be intimidated by a little presidential rage, Holmes reportedly brushed off Roosevelt's comment with a smile and a reference to "shallow intellects" when told of it. A few years later, at a White House dinner, Holmes told a labor leader: "What you want is favor, not justice. But when I am on my job, I don't give a damn what you or Mr. Roosevelt want."

As this blog has noted before, President Truman was none too pleased when two of the four less-than-sterling cronies whom he had put on the Court joined a very big 1952 decision striking down the president's seizure of the nation's steel mills during the Korean War.

"Packing the Supreme Court simply can't be done," Truman complained in a lecture at Columbia University in 1959. "I've tried it, and it won't work. ... Whenever you put a man on the Supreme Court, he ceases to be your friend."

President Eisenhower was not much happier with two of his own five appointees, Chief Justice Earl Warren and Justice William Brennan, who turned out to be crusading liberals. As quoted in Henry Abraham's "Justices and Presidents," Ike's response when asked whether he had made any mistakes as president was: "Yes, two, and they are both sitting on the Supreme Court." (Some have suggested that this comment may be apocryphal.)

In 1970, G. Harrold Carswell, one of President Nixon's nominees, came under attack for -- among other alleged flaws -- being a crashing mediocrity. Sen. Roman Hruska of Nebraska tried to come to the rescue.

"Even if he is mediocre," protested Hruska, "there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they, and a little chance? We can't have all Brandeises, Cardozos, and Frankfurters, and stuff like that there." This did not save Carswell, whom the Senate rejected by a 51-45 vote.

Another Nixon appointee, William Rehnquist, was no mediocrity. But Nixon was not especially impressed when he first saw the then-assistant attorney general running a meeting in July 1971.

According to "The Rehnquist Choice," by John Dean, then Nixon's White House Counsel, Rehnquist was wearing "a pink shirt that clashed with an awful psychedelic necktie" and Hush Puppies.

"John, who the hell is that clown?" Nixon asked. "That's a hell of a costume he's wearing, just like a clown."

Nixon nonetheless made the very conservative Rehnquist - whom he sometimes called "Renchburg" -- an associate justice a few months later. Then, from 1980 to 1981, John Roberts served Rehnquist as a law clerk, a credential that helped him become a rising conservative star in the Reagan Justice Department. Then, in 1986, President Reagan made Rehnquist Chief Justice. Then, in 2005, Rehnquist died and President Bush appointed Roberts to fill his seat.

History might have been very different had Nixon written Rehnquist off once and for all because of that psychedelic necktie.