Posted on 10/30/2011 4:35:50 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued
It is, to be sure, completely understandable that the Democrats wanted to keep Bork off the court. Lewis Powell, the great moderate, was stepping down, which would be leaving the court evenly divided between conservatives and liberals. There was tremendous fear that if Bork were confirmed, he would swing the court to the conservatives and important liberal victories would be overturned — starting with Roe v. Wade.
But liberals couldn’t just come out and say that. “If this were carried out as an internal Senate debate,” Ann Lewis, the Democratic activist, would later acknowledge, “we would have deep and thoughtful discussions about the Constitution, and then we would lose.” So, instead, the Democrats sought to portray Bork as “a right-wing loony,” to use a phrase in a memo written by the Advocacy Institute, a liberal lobby group.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
One of Bork’s opponents admitted that liberals could never win a serious debate about the Constitution, so that’s why they resorted to character assassination of Robert Bork.
Yeah, they were none too kind to Ronald Reagan.
Not on the same scale he wasn’t.
Well, duhhhh.... And the media was complicit.
The task of the judge, he once wrote, is “to discern how the framers’ values, defined in the context of the world they knew, apply to the world we know.”
The Bad...
That same Advocacy Institute memo noted that, “Like it or not, Bork falls (perhaps barely) at the borderline of respectability.” It didn’t matter. He had to be portrayed “as an extreme ideological activist.” The ends were used to justify some truly despicable means.
And the Ugly
The next time a liberal asks why Republicans are so intransigent, you might suggest that the answer lies in the mirror.
I think that Ted Kennedy here may have done more damage to America in a single act that anyone ever has.
An amazingly fair piece from the NYT.
“I think that Ted Kennedy here may have done more damage to America in a single act that anyone ever has. “
Bingo. Fat Teddy hated conservatives more than the Kenyan lizard even and put party above all else.
We right wingers should punch back twice as hard.
It actually started with Clement Haynsworth.
John Tower got a raw deal as well.
Wright’s situation was completely different. He violated the rules of ethics and resigned under pressure from Democrats, who controlled the Congress at that time.
Wright's own corruption brought him down.
That was his 1965 immigration act which was a deliberate move to turn America into a third world hell hole. The liberals and media were on a roll from the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which Republicans passed) and took advantage of the propaganda to brand anyone who opposed the vile immigration law as a Bull Connor.
"If this were carried out as an internal Senate debate," Ann Lewis, the Democratic activist, would later acknowledge, "we would have deep and thoughtful discussions about the Constitution, and then we would lose." So, instead, the Democrats sought to portray Bork as "a right-wing loony," to use a phrase in a memo written by the Advocacy Institute, a liberal lobby group.It started with FDR's attempt to pack the SCOTUS. He accomplished it through attrition -- during his 13 years in office, he appointed more than nine justices.
That’s when it got really out of hand, but the way they treated Richard Nixon was pretty bad . . . starting with their holier-than-thou theatrics of Watergate.
Those good moral ethical Democrats of Lyndon Johnson and Mayor Daley.
Agreed, but he had some baggage as well. The saddest part was that his rejection by the Senate eventually led to his untimely death.
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