On this day in 1987

The Borking. On October 23, 1987, the United States Senate held one of the most-controversial votes on a Supreme Court nominee in its history, when it rejected Robert Bork’s appointment.

The evil and words of Ted Kennedy was still apparent during the Kavanaugh hearings. We heard almost exactly the same charges.  "“Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is often the only protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy,” he said.

The irony is the Supreme Court always moves to the left, even with an appointment by a Republican.  Democrats are never disappointed in a Republican nominee—Republicans always are.

Kennedy, Bork and Mary Jo

Remember back about 30 years ago when Ted Kennedy who allowed an injured young woman to drown in his car made the same kind of smears we're hearing today? Ruthless. Yet the Democrats thought he was wonderful--kept reelecting him. They have engineered this smear to delay the hearings. Democrats have made the #MeToo movement a joke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNaasFvvFlE

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Jo_Kopechne

Democrats vow to fight ANYONE Trump appoints

The attacks aren’t new.  1987 and 1989. Bork and Thomas.  30 years of liberals attacking conservatives and the Constitution. "The left’s attack on Bork had gone far beyond mere good-faith intellectual or ideological disagreement, devolving instead into “intellectual vulgarization and personal savagery,” “profoundly distorting the record and the nature of the man.”" (Commentary) And Justice Thomas described his nomination process as a "high tech lynching." Bork's experience became a verb--borking. Nastier than anything on social media in 2018, but it was 30 years ago. Ted Kennedy's lowest, ugliest point in his career, outside of Chappaquiddick.

Borkiversary 20

In my lifetime I date the viciousness of political smearing to the confirmation hearings of Robert Bork. It got nasty during the Clinton years, and crescendoed with Bush, but Bork was a foretaste of things to come. A training camp for liberals and conservatives both. A new verb entered our language, "to bork" or to destroy a man while smirking and posturing in front of a TV audience. Gary L. McDowell wrote in the WSJ this week:

"The issue that united the judge's critics in their fiery, scorched-earth opposition was never his ability or reputation but rather his theory of judging. Mr. Bork's belief was that judges and justices in their interpretations of the Constitution must be bound to the original intentions of its framers."

"At its deepest level, Mr. Bork's defeat was the result of the very public affirmation by the Senate of a dangerous theory of ideological judging that had been developing for quite some time. It was the idea of a so-called "living" Constitution, one that various scholars have said means there need be "no theoretical gulf between law and morality," and that ordinary judges are empowered to interpret the fundamental law in light of their own "fresh moral insight" in order to effect a judicially mandated "moral evolution" of the nation."

Some say it was about abortion, but I think that was just the tossed bone used to whip up the masses--mainly women, because men really don't care. It was about judges taking over the responsibilities of the law makers--although why our linguini spined elected officials desired that, I can't imagine. Even Clarence Thomas says his "lynching" by liberals, black and white, was about abortion. You would almost hope that was it. In his case, I'd say it was pure racism, ugly and vile, with little or nothing to do with abortion or constitutional interpretation.

For all his other slip-ups from immigration to not fixing social security, Bush has at least given us Roberts and Alito.