strom thurmond, one of the most conservative republicans. why do you think strom thurmond said he would let a somewhat liberal harvard law professor get on the first circuit? justice breyer: it was a different day. people did try to work together. every single morning, the judiciary committee -- we would have breakfast with a former general and with strom thurmond and we would plan out the day. we wanted to try to accomplish something. we would figure out, how do we color it read for this party and blue for the other party? the important thing is that it is desirable, let's try to get it through. that happened a lot. i cannot say there was no conniving. but we never used to call what we did open conniving openly arrived at. david: so you went on the first circuit. you had a good reputation. you were being considered to be on the supreme court. you came down for an interview with president clinton, but you had a bike accident. you have a lot of injured bones. do you think it was bad karma you had this accident -- you had the -- justice breyer