Patterico's Pontifications

12/19/2012

R.I.P. Robert Bork

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:40 am



Yet another reminder of mortality. Both Bork and the guy who killed his reputation, Ted Kennedy, are now gone.

Bork would have been a very good Supreme Court justice. Condolences to his family.

40 Responses to “R.I.P. Robert Bork”

  1. Kennedy taught a generation that self-righteously declaring a serious of lies in a confident tone can fool a lot of people. Somewhere, a recently convicted bomber was taking notes.

    Patterico (8b3905)

  2. What do you want to bet that the media coverage only very lightly plays the awful lies that Ted Kennedy told in the bid to sink the nomination, and that they set up some kind of moral equivalence for how the GOP has since “retaliated” by stalling some silly left-wing district court nominee?

    JVW (4826a9)

  3. Unfortunately, a whole lot of people were taking notes, and dominating mass media ever since.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  4. Had Bork been confirmed, his death would have given Obama another nomination to the court. Kennedy will still be there when Obama leaves office. Unless, of course, he doesn’t.

    Mike_K (5552a4)

  5. I did not agree with some of Bork’s views, but I admired his legal acumen, honesty and intelligence. I despised Ted Kennedy and the guy from Ohio for what they did to him. They were not worthy to carry his briefcase.

    nk (875f57)

  6. nk,

    You’re thinking of Howard Metzenbaum, former sleazebag Senator of Ohio.

    Elephant Stone (65d289)

  7. I guess, Elephant Stone. He was one creepy character, ranting about Griswold v. Connecticutt, a creepy rant in itself. Bork was a gentleman in front of these jacka**es, maybe too much of a gentleman.

    I know most of you guys did not like Specter, but the way he defended Thomas, against Anita Hill, is the way Bork should have been defended.

    nk (875f57)

  8. Kennedy will still be there when Obama leaves office. Unless, of course, he doesn’t.

    What do you mean by that?

    Michael Ejercito (2e0217)

  9. nk,

    You’re spot-on about the way that Specter defended Clarence Thomas, but don’t forget the way that Specter had his knives out for Bork during his confirmation hearings.

    Elephant Stone (65d289)

  10. Mike K: Kennedy will still be there when Obama leaves office. Unless, of course, he doesn’t.

    Michael Ejercito: What do you mean by that?

    I think he means it won’t be long before the Obama Chorus in academia and the media starts wondering aloud of the 22nd Amendment is really a good idea. Don’t you recall how the Clintonistas bemoaned that the Constitution didn’t allow Billy C. to stay President for Life?

    JVW (4826a9)

  11. Bork was let down by a lot of Republicans.

    nk (875f57)

  12. Alan Simpson (R-WI) had the decency to tell Clarence Thomas, “Fight”. And the fight brought Republicans and Democrats to Thomas’s side. Illinois lost a fine Senator, Allen Dixon, because of it and we got an idiot, Carol Moseley-Braun, in his place.

    nk (875f57)

  13. nk,

    Bork was let down by several Republicans in the final vote, but Specter was the a-hole on the all-important Senate Judiciary Committee who had his knives out for Judge Bork.

    The Senate Judiciary Committee conducted the hearings.

    Please. Let’s not pass the buck on this one.

    Specter could have stood up for Bork the same way he would later stand up for Thomas. But he didn’t—instead, he threw darts at him.

    Elephant Stone (65d289)

  14. After Bork’s nomination to SCOTUS, Ted Kennedy made the following statement to the Senate:

    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 could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is—and is often the only—protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy … President Reagan is still our president. But he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and the next generation of Americans. No justice would be better than this injustice.

    Judiciary Committee Chairman, Joe Biden, joined Kennedy’s coordinated attack, Gregory Peck was brought in to narrate TV ads calling Bork an extreamist, and NPR’s Nina Totenberg performed her usual roll as a character assassin.

    Bork defended himself by claiming that “There was not a line in (Kennedy’s) speech that was accurate.” Years later, the Economist’s Kennedy obituary acknowledged that it was Bork and not Kennedy who had been correct, but that Kennedy had succeeded in denying Bork a SC appointment.

    And in his book, <iThe Tempting of America Bork wrote that Biden “so thoroughly misrepresented (his) plain record that it easily qualifies as world class in the category of scurrility.”

    ropelight (e51ff1)

  15. The bright side:
    This is a Supreme Court appointment denied Obama.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  16. Comment by nk (875f57) — 12/19/2012 @ 10:31 am

    “R-WY”

    FTFY!

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  17. Teddy’s conduct on the Senate Floor in the Bork Nomination is all the reason needed to make a special exception in the criminal code for Senatorial/Congressional Dueling for speech that is otherwise protected under the Constitution.

    They need to have their a$$ cash that check their mouth just wrote.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  18. Ted Kennedy left a woman to drown, didn’t report it to authorities until after lunch (and a consultation with his attorney !) the next day, yet he somehow would still find the nerve to position himself as some sort of moral authority.

    Elephant Stone (65d289)

  19. Thanks, askeptic.

    BTW, you do know that a skeptic means a thinker, whereas askeptic, without the space, means thoughtless/negligent?

    Also, I owe you an apology for a comment I made to you in a porn thread, and it’s been bothering me. Please accept it, now.

    nk (875f57)

  20. nk will be performing at the Chicago Laugh Factory on Thursday nite. He’ll take the stage around 9:45PM.
    Two drink minimum, but I recommend four or five drinks if you expect to laugh at his jokes.

    Elephant Stone (65d289)

  21. think of “askeptic” as an email address – spaces generally frowned upon.
    After last month, “skeptic” pretty much frames my position/opinion of what is happening in this nation of ours, and whether or not we can recover.
    There is just so much dead-wood to overcome.
    As to your comment, I doubt if I ever saw it – and it’s water off of a duck’s back.
    No Harm, No Foul!

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  22. ES, is he appearing to restock his produce pantry?

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  23. askeptic,

    Yeah, pal, but I think he’s got too many lemons. A sour taste !

    Elephant Stone (65d289)

  24. The porn thread was here. You agreed with me that porn stars were exhibitionists and I misunderstood.

    nk (875f57)

  25. “skeptic” can mean doubtfull as well as thoughtfull.

    nk (875f57)

  26. The bright side:
    This is a Supreme Court appointment denied Obama.
    Comment by askeptic (b8ab92) — 12/19/2012 @ 10:38 am

    — The un-bright side:
    This could have been 3 years without Sotomayor, or 2 years without Kagan.

    Icy (124c 41+) (e4ca1c)

  27. Specter and Kennedy should rot in Hell for what they did here.

    Rodney King's Spirit (951136)

  28. Nothing to see here:
    WASHINGTON (AP) – Three State Department officials resigned under pressure Wednesday, less than a day after a damning report blamed management failures for a lack of security at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, where militants killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans on Sept. 11

    Icy (124c 41+) (e4ca1c)

  29. NK, I believe that Simpson was the Senator from WY, not WI or WO.

    aphrael (9be6f3)

  30. The SCOTUS (aka the Dred Scott Memorial Court) is a festering pile of dog crap.

    Not getting into it was the best thing that ever happened to Robert Bork.

    He lucked out.

    Sorry to hear that he’s died.

    Dave Surls (46b08c)

  31. Of course,, you can’t understand the blanc mange behavior of Anthony Kennedy, and to a degree, John Roberts, without regards to the ‘trial by fire’ he’s been on, no left wing judge, gets anywhere that level of scrutiny,

    narciso (ee31f1)

  32. A great jurist, who we were deprived of his talent,
    some however don’t have a clue;

    http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=46069

    narciso (ee31f1)

  33. narciso, are you saying that Kennedy and Roberts are still undergoing their confirmation hearings? Or are you simply acknowledging that Alito, Scalia & Thomas are the only ones on the court with any balls?

    Icy (124c 41+) (e4ca1c)

  34. More of the latter, although Roberts only need a beachball to show what a dancing seal he has become.

    narciso (ee31f1)

  35. I think he means it won’t be long before the Obama Chorus in academia and the media starts wondering aloud of the 22nd Amendment is really a good idea.

    The votes to repeal it are not there.

    Michael Ejercito (2e0217)

  36. “The very fact that we have gone from Elvis to Snoop Doggy Dogg is the heart of the case for censorship” — Robert Bork.

    Aren’t we all happy that we don’t read that in a Supreme Court opinion? Thank you Joe Biden and Ted Kennedy, for your service to this country.

    AmishParadise (e45887)

  37. Comment by nk (875f57) — 12/19/2012 @ 10:29 am

    And the fight brought Republicans and Democrats to Thomas’s side. Illinois lost a fine Senator, Allen Dixon, because of it and we got an idiot, Carol Moseley-Braun, in his place.

    But then Carol Mosely Braun ran into trouble.

    First, when her mother stood to inheritance money, ahe and her siblings managed to bypass her mother, because her mother would have had to reimburse Medicaid (Medicaid has clawbacks!)

    Then, it came out she and her campaign manager/fiance spent $281,000 in campaign funds on a trip to Africa, jewelry, stereo equipment, clothes and two jeeps. Her fiance (with whom she later split up) was a registered agent of the government of Nigeria and they paid a “private” visit to Nigeria, and met with then dictator General Sani Abacha, without the usual checking in with the State Department. Her poll numbers dropped, but few Democrats wanted to run against a black Senator and Mayor Daley II endorsed her. There weren’t many Republicans running. Only anti-abortion Peter Fitzgerald was running and he seemed to have a clear path to the Senate. So Republican leaders persuaded Comptroller Lolita Didrickson to run. Carol Mosely Braun said they voted very much alike in the State legislature and Peter Fitzgerald made that into an ad. Fitzgerald won both the primary and the general election by a narrow margin but spent a tremendous amount of his own money in the process.

    In 2004, he decided not run for re-election, and the rest is history.

    Sammy Finkelman (7b1b59)

  38. A few months I think I read that Robert Bork was sick, and his age. I didn’t know he was so old.

    Sammy Finkelman (7b1b59)

  39. 16.

    The bright side:
    This is a Supreme Court appointment denied Obama.

    We don’t know that at all, do we?

    Souter chose to leave early; ditto Stevens, who, tho quite old, left on his own schedule, marbles intact – OLDER then any of the current SCOTUS justices will be when Obama’s second term ends; the oldest, Ginsberg, could hang in until the last year of President H. Clinton’s second term before she reaches Stevens’ leaving age. One of the younger judges could go next; indeed, the best predictor of very very very old age is very very old age, and so on back.

    We cannot predict the future, only make book.

    Orestes Ippeau (595e35)


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