Posted on 10/23/2007 4:09:07 AM PDT by IrishMike
Twenty years ago today the United States Senate voted to reject President Reagan's nomination of Judge Robert H. Bork to the Supreme Court. The senators may have had every reason to believe that was the end of the story. However ugly it had been, however much time it had taken, Mr. Bork's defeat was only one more routine sacrifice to partisan politics. But time would prove wrong anyone who actually thought that. The battle over Mr. Bork was politically transformative, its constitutional lessons enduring.
To many at the time (and still today) it was inconceivable that a man of Mr. Bork's professional accomplishments and personal character could be found unacceptable for a seat on the Court. Warren Burger summed it up for many when he described Mr. Bork as simply the best qualified nominee in the former chief justice's own professional lifetime--a span of years that included the appointments of such judicial luminaries as Benjamin Cardozo, Hugo Black and Felix Frankfurter. Such praise was no empty exaggeration.
A former Yale law professor and U.S. Solicitor General, Mr. Bork was, at the time of his nomination, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. When he was a circuit court judge, Mr. Bork's opinions not only were never overruled on appeal, but on several occasions his dissents were adopted by the Supreme Court as its majority view.
In an earlier day such an appointment would have been celebrated as adding breadth, depth and luster to the highest bench. Instead, the nominee faced a mauling by those who set out not only to destroy him personally but to discredit all that he stood for as a jurist.
It was immediately clear that the unprecedented vote of 58-42 against his confirmation reflected something far more historic
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
This is why Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton should never be president. They both are lawyers, and the both believe there’s a “right” to an abortion in the Constitution.
Any idiot who can read can see that’s not in there.
You do not hire them to be your civil master.
While all the Democrats will certainly make unacceptable picks for the Supreme Court, neither Paul or Giuliani can be trusted on this.
Judge Bork was the first time that politics was injected so blatantly in the Supreme Court nomination process. And it’s continued for every justice and every judge nominated by every president since then.
ping
IIRC, the Republicans were civil to President Clinton’s two nominees, despite their radical views of the Constitution.
16 out of 17 of the AMERICANS that were involved in creating the U . N. were later identified, in sworn testimony, as secret communist agents.
The first Secretary General was the AMERICAN Alger Hiss. Alger Hiss served time in prison pursuant to his involvement in a Communist spy ring.
Many of the other AMERICANS that were involved in creating the U . N. fled the country, to avoid prosecution.
The ONE AMERICAN, that was involved in creating the U . N. ; and was NOT later identified, in sworn testimony, as a secret communist agent, was Dean Acheson. Dean Acheson’s law firm was the legal representative of the Soviet Union, in U. S. courts.
If the AMERICANS that were involved in creating the U . N. were Communists, what do you think we got from the rest of the world?
Cna you give me an example of conflicting interpretations of the Constitution between “the crackpot” and say, Clarence Thomas?
The greatest impedimant to self government IS the government. The politicos have absolutely no intention of sharing their power w/ anyone, let alone a bunch of under educated (by design) rubes out in the red states.
The upcoming election is for all the marbles folks. If the dems prevail we will be a Socialist Union for the next 100 years ot until we implode, which ever comes first.
This is not an exaggeration.
Actually, they do share it all to freely with the beltway bureaucrats, who have in many ways better access to and more opportunity to influence your representatives in Congress than you do.
When Thomas says the Federal Reserve, NSA wiretapping, the war in Iraq, ditto, ditto, ditto, are unconstitutional or contrary to intent of the “founding fathers” LET ME KNOW.
IOW, you can't give me an example. Not one.
And the Democrats were civil to Justice Kennedy and Justice Souter. Besides, there wasn't much the Republicans could do. Democrats still ran the Senate when Ginsburg and Breyer were confirmed. After the 1994 elections Clinton had to fight for many of his appointments.
There is no doubt that the Democrats started the whole partiasan issue of judges with Bork. And it's become the norm on both sides since.
IWO??? I gave examples of areas/issues of federal government action were your clown prince has made idiot pronoucement on the Constitution were these federal actions have been accepted by Thomas and other constructionist Justices, with NO CHALLENGE at all. You can also throw in drug regulation and federal regulation of partial birth abortion, and.... well you get the point and that’s why you won’t deal with it.
Did you read Bork’s book? I would not put him in the same class as Thomas. Not even close. And he’s NOT a “true Constitutionalist” by any means. Then of course I happen to believe that the Constitution means something and that our black robed masters have taken to ignoring parts they don’t like. Bork knows NOTHING about the 9th and 10th Amendments, which is what makes him WORTHLESS as a judge. Frankly, I’m glad he didn’t make it. Ginzberg is worse for sure, but in a different direction.
Here’s just a few “forinstances” about what I am saying...
1) In 1999, Bork wrote an essay where he condemned jury nullification as a “pernicious practice”. See what a REAL conservative like Chief Justice John Jay, in Georgia v. Brailsford, (1794) had to say about nullification - “you have a right to take it upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy.”
2) Bork has argued that the Second Amendment merely guarantees a right to participate in a government militia. That’s not “original intent” and you damn well know it.
3) In 2005 Bork claimed that “[l]iberty in America can be enhanced by reinstating, legislatively, restraints upon the direction of our culture and morality”. You support government censorship of our media? I sure as hell don’t.
And so on. Bork would have made a terrible supreme and Ronnie missed the boat when he nominated him.
Excellent column.
I have never seen an example of Clarence Thomas disagreeing with Ron Paul on Constitutional issues. Can you give me one? Justice Thomas disagrees with the constitution basis of many of the laws currently in effect, but expresses that opinion only when those issues are brought before the Court.
Oh really? The republicans couldn't obstruct and block appointments when they were the minority. Why didn't someone tell that to the democrats from 2001 - 2006 then. As for civility to Kennedy and Souter, the democrats made loud threats to Bork anybody Bush nominated. In fact, when Souter was nominated, the dems screamed loudly with the same kind of rhetoric that the directed toward Alito, but the complaints were so utterly laughable that nobody took their rantings seriously. After several years of his rulings it is truly ludicrous that they ever complained about him. I have to disagree with your assessment that the partisan borking of judicial appointments has become the norm on both sides. The republicans NEVER even came close to the kind of slander of judicial nominees that is norm for the democrats anytime a GOP president appoints someone.
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