The Odd Clauses: Understanding the Constitution Through Ten of Its Most… (2011)

The Odd Clauses, by Jay Wexler, provided a fascinating and very accessable journey through ten of The Constitution's more obscure provisions.
A professor at Boston University School of Law, Mr Wexler writes with a large dollop of snarky political asides, that I found in no way affected my understanding of the difficul subject matter.

Seperation of Powers; Weights and Measures; Recess Appointments; Original Jurisdiction; Natural Born Citizen; Federalism; Letters of Marque and Reprisal; Title of Nobility and Privacy clauses are all treated thoroughly enough that even a political neophyte like myself grasped a basic understanding of these parts of our Constitution with out making me feel stupid.
I came away with a much greater respect and admiration for the framers of the Constitution who were prescient to include these clauses to ensure a more free and open society than what they had left in Great Britain.
My interest has been piqued enough that I will pursue more on this and similar subjects. ( )

Bias in a book about law is to be expected. However, it occasionally got so extreme in this book that I was almost embarrassed for the author. Any time half of the country's population is called "nauseating" and "silly" there is credibility lost. After reading half of the book, I decided that I couldn't trust his representation of anything. That's unfortunate, since he actually did a good job at making complicated issues accessible. ( )

Some of the negative reviews for this book mention the fact that Wexler is pretty brazen about his political views, quite often blasting conservatives. While true, I didn't find it all that hard to look past that, and focus on the quality of the content, which was actually quite good.

The book, as the subtitle states, focuses on the constitutions's least well known clauses. Wexler gives in-depth, intelligent and engaging commentary on the recess appointment clause; the weights and measures clause; my personal favorite, the letters of marque and reprisal clause; and a few others.

What made this book a real pleasure was that the analysis was not just legal and historical; the author went through great pains to look at these clauses from a modern, relevant point of view. For example, he describes a view held by a small minority of legal professors that states that the separation of powers clause does not prohibit a president from also simultaneously serving in Congress, since the president is not a member of the executive, but rather presides over it.

Overall this was a very fun, light, informative read, and I would recommend it to readers with any prior degree of knowledge of the constitution.

A mildly interesting book on several less-discussed clauses of the Constitution. His humor falls a bit flat at times. He does have a clear bias, but I don't think it's as bad as some reviewers have claimed. I suppose if you're a touchy Republican, this is a book to avoid.

As I finished The Odd Clauses by Jay Wexler, I thought a lot about the Pareto Principle, which is often called "the 80-20 rule." But it wasn't because, by my own estimation, 80% of federal cases deal with words found in about 20% of the U.S. Constitution. Rather, it's because about 80% of The Odd Clauses is really quite impressive, but the remaining 20% made me want to review the book more harshly.

Wexler, a constitutional law professor, takes ten clauses (it's really about three dozen, but most of those are only briefly mentioned) of the U.S. Constitution that aren't as well-known or seem anachronistic in the modern world. For example, one of the chapters is on the Letters of Marque and Reprisal clause, which allows the U.S. to hire pirates. There's a short history about each clause and then an example or two to illustrate the meaning. Very subtly, Wexler introduces concepts like substantive due process without wading through the morass of Supreme Court opinions that so many law school students suffer through.

Reading the book feels almost like sitting through one of Wexler's classes -- and that's where I think the book fails. Many current teachers believe (as I do) humor is a great way to get students to pay more attention, especially to anything that could possibly be conceived of as "boring." Wexler has a decent sense of humor -- there were a few times I laughed out loud -- but he goes a little too far when he starts making political jokes. He's not afraid to show his bias, but here his attempts at humor are really poorly disguised ad hominem attacks. (As just one example, he skewers George Bush for making hundreds of recess appointments, including one "unpopular and reportedly insufferable" ambassador, but Bill Clinton, who made almost as many appointments, is praised for using the same questionable power for appointing an openly gay ambassador.) The politics (and name-calling) gets substantially worse in each chapter.

Were it not for that out-of-control 20%, I'd love to recommend this book to any high school students interested in law or government, and definitely any pre-law college students. But it seems more like Wexler was aiming at The Daily Show and The Colbert Report viewers, which narrows the audience considerably, for no valid reason.

[Early Reviewer book]

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LT Haiku:
Oh, what curious
constitutional phrases!
Obscure but not dull. ( )