Supreme Court leak investigation heats up as clerks are asked for phone records in unprecedented move

[mnole03]

True enough, he did get a vote, but the point is that the acrimony that encompasses Supreme Court nominations and our politics in general started with this outrageous speech by Ted Kennedy after Bork’s nomination was announced:

“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, and schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists would 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.”

I realize that this just sounds like Twitter every day now, but believe it or not people didn’t always talk to each other like this.

Here is a NY Times OpEd that makes the same case:
The Ugliness Started With Bork

Bork turned around and wrote a book where he said the Bill of Rights shouldn’t have been incorporated and went after any expansive reading of Equal Protection.

What they said about him was true.

 

[soybean]

The lingering GOP butthurt over Bork losing his nomination vote 35 years ago is astounding considering what has transpired to the process since then.

 

[sober_teacher]

What about Robert Bork? The vote was 42-58

Bork's behavior under Nixon should have precluded him from nomination

Just like anyone tied to the 1/6 insurrection and trying to overturn a legitimate election should be precluded from any judicial appointment or government office.

Unless you're rooting for Rudy G or Sidney P for being the next SC nominee here.

I love it when Bork gets brought up, like he wasn’t already a controversial selection for the SC based on his involvement in the Saturday Night Massacre.

 

[Aardvark86]

1. Bork was brilliant and an originalist. That is what people were frightened of, not his role in the Saturday Night Massacre (though the latter was certainly a fair enough reason not to vote for him). (Interestingly, it was scalia who was more feared by the left, because he was perceived to be just as smart as Bork, but charming enough to build coalitions. Yet he got confirmed 98-0 and turned out to be an acerbic bomb thrower in his opinions.)
2. Bork did get screwed, though obviously not in the same way that Garland did. But screwed they both were. Sadly, the conduct of his confirmation hearings (including the very fact that they were broadcast wall to wall, leaking of his video rental history, and the like) set the tone for all future hearings. You don't like "stealth" candidates who don't answer questions? Bork did. Lots and lots of them. In such detail that you could have probably skipped conlaw class and passed the final if you'd simply watched them. You don't like nominees who can't answer whether the Korean War was a war? You don't like nominees who can't say what a woman is? Thank Bork's judiciary committee.
3. Bork did himself no favors. When asked the one question late in the hearings that you should be prepared to answer -- "why do you want to be a supreme court justice?" -- his reply was along the lines of, "it would be an intellectual feast." Sorry Bob, the job's not about your personal satisfaction, it's about the litigants, be they individuals, corporations, or governments. That is actually the moment that killed his nomination.

 

[Finance85]

1. Bork was brilliant and an originalist. That is what people were frightened of, not his role in the Saturday Night Massacre (though the latter was certainly a fair enough reason not to vote for him). (Interestingly, it was scalia who was more feared by the left, because he was perceived to be just as smart as Bork, but charming enough to build coalitions. Yet he got confirmed 98-0 and turned out to be an acerbic bomb thrower in his opinions.)
2. Bork did get screwed, though obviously not in the same way that Garland did. But screwed they both were. Sadly, the conduct of his confirmation hearings (including the very fact that they were broadcast wall to wall, leaking of his video rental history, and the like) set the tone for all future hearings. You don't like "stealth" candidates who don't answer questions? Bork did. Lots and lots of them. In such detail that you could have probably skipped conlaw class and passed the final if you'd simply watched them. You don't like nominees who can't answer whether the Korean War was a war? You don't like nominees who can't say what a woman is? Thank Bork's judiciary committee.
3. Bork did himself no favors. When asked the one question late in the hearings that you should be prepared to answer -- "why do you want to be a supreme court justice?" -- his reply was along the lines of, "it would be an intellectual feast." Sorry Bob, the job's not about your personal satisfaction, it's about the litigants, be they individuals, corporations, or governments. That is actually the moment that killed his nomination.

I agree with a lot of this, but not the last part. There was no answer in the hearings that killed Bork's nomination. It was DOA.

 

[St. Louis Hawk]

1. Bork was brilliant and an originalist. That is what people were frightened of, not his role in the Saturday Night Massacre (though the latter was certainly a fair enough reason not to vote for him). (Interestingly, it was scalia who was more feared by the left, because he was perceived to be just as smart as Bork, but charming enough to build coalitions. Yet he got confirmed 98-0 and turned out to be an acerbic bomb thrower in his opinions.)
2. Bork did get screwed, though obviously not in the same way that Garland did. But screwed they both were.

Good summary, other than Bork wasn't screwed. The minute he didn't do what Richardson and Ruckelshaus did, the die was cast.

Saturday Massacre, as you said, was more than enough to keep him off the Court. Should never have been nominated. What was Reagan's vet team thinking - Maybe everyone forgot about Bork's role that day? Particularly when the democrats held 54 Senate seats.

Didn't understood the nomination then; don't now. 6 republicans voted against him. Can you imagine any nomination today where 6 members of the President's party would vote against the nominee?

 

[Big Hawk D-Port]

Kennedy’s statements, while unnecessarily hyperbolic, are not far off.

His statements were way off base. You cannot throw a series of (rhetorical) hand grenades and then try to act civil once the cameras are off.

The fact that the culture has so degraded that you can say “you want to force women into back alley abortions” and nobody bats an eye is the problem. And of course it goes tit for tat to the point where we have a Supreme Court nominee casually being accused of being a gang rapist by Julie Swetnik.

 

[Aardvark86]

I agree with a lot of this, but not the last part. There was no answer in the hearings that killed Bork's nomination. It was DOA.

a fair point that no single answer killed it (what I meant to say was more along the lines of nail in the coffin), but I completely disagree that it was DOA.

 

[WhiteSoxClone]

I realize that this just sounds like Twitter every day now, but believe it or not people didn’t always talk to each other like this.

Another indicator of how times have changed:

"On October 29, 1987, President Reagan announced his intention to nominate Douglas Ginsburg to the Supreme Court of the United States to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Lewis Powell,[13][14] which had been announced on June 26.[15] Ginsburg was chosen after the United States Senate, controlled by Democrats, had voted down the nomination of Judge Robert Bork after a highly controversial nomination battle which ended with a 42–58 rejection vote on October 23.[16]

Ginsburg's nomination collapsed for entirely different reasons from Bork's rejection, as he almost immediately came under some fire when NPR's Nina Totenberg[17] revealed that Ginsburg had used marijuana "on a few occasions" during his student days in the 1960s and while an assistant professor at Harvard in the 1970s."

Can you imagine a nominee having to withdraw because they'd smoked marijuana "on a few occasions" more than 15 years ago? Its amazing how much the views on marijuana have changed since the 1980s.

 

[St. Louis Hawk]

His statements were way off base. You cannot throw a series of (rhetorical) hand grenades and then try to act civil once the cameras are off.

The fact that the culture has so degraded that you can say “you want to force women into back alley abortions” and nobody bats an eye is the problem. And of course it goes tit for tat to the point where we have a Supreme Court nominee casually being accused of being a gang rapist by Julie Swetnik.

The fact that conservatives are pearl clutching about 35 year old statements from a Senator who has been dead 13 years, involving a nominee who got a full up or down vote in the Senate, and was rejected in a bipartisan vote, as an excuse to not even take up Garland's nomination and push through ACB in 3 weeks, is disingenuous.

And I think you probably agree with that.

 

[lucas80]

No it didn’t. The Senate held a full recorded floor vote on Bork.

6 republicans voted no on his nomination because he was the guy leading the Saturday Night Massacre.

Are you saying that the Senate has to approve every nominee?

Titan thinks that John Eastman and Rudy Guiliani would make fine additions to the SCOTUS.

 

[lucas80]

1. Bork was brilliant and an originalist. That is what people were frightened of, not his role in the Saturday Night Massacre (though the latter was certainly a fair enough reason not to vote for him). (Interestingly, it was scalia who was more feared by the left, because he was perceived to be just as smart as Bork, but charming enough to build coalitions. Yet he got confirmed 98-0 and turned out to be an acerbic bomb thrower in his opinions.)
2. Bork did get screwed, though obviously not in the same way that Garland did. But screwed they both were. Sadly, the conduct of his confirmation hearings (including the very fact that they were broadcast wall to wall, leaking of his video rental history, and the like) set the tone for all future hearings. You don't like "stealth" candidates who don't answer questions? Bork did. Lots and lots of them. In such detail that you could have probably skipped conlaw class and passed the final if you'd simply watched them. You don't like nominees who can't answer whether the Korean War was a war? You don't like nominees who can't say what a woman is? Thank Bork's judiciary committee.
3. Bork did himself no favors. When asked the one question late in the hearings that you should be prepared to answer -- "why do you want to be a supreme court justice?" -- his reply was along the lines of, "it would be an intellectual feast." Sorry Bob, the job's not about your personal satisfaction, it's about the litigants, be they individuals, corporations, or governments. That is actually the moment that killed his nomination.

It's weird that you create this elaborate construct as to why the Bork nomination failed instead of going for the obvious reasons.

 

[Aardvark86]

It's weird that you create this elaborate construct as to why the Bork nomination failed instead of going for the obvious reasons.

obvious reasons? as I noted in my very first point, his originalism was pretty damned obvious. After all, Teddy didn't exactly run to the senate floor to bitch about 1972 now did he?

 

[Big Hawk D-Port]

The fact that conservatives are pearl clutching about 35 year old statements from a Senator who has been dead 13 years, involving a nominee who got a full up or down vote in the Senate, and was rejected in a bipartisan vote, as an excuse to not even take up Garland's nomination and push through ACB in 3 weeks, is disingenuous.

And I think you probably agree with that.

The point I was making about Bork, followed by the circus with Thomas’s confirmation, was that the acrimony between the two sides had been building for decades. One can point to the Bork nomination as a turning point (for the worse).

 

[CarolinaHawkeye]

Another indicator of how times have changed:

"On October 29, 1987, President Reagan announced his intention to nominate Douglas Ginsburg to the Supreme Court of the United States to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Lewis Powell,[13][14] which had been announced on June 26.[15] Ginsburg was chosen after the United States Senate, controlled by Democrats, had voted down the nomination of Judge Robert Bork after a highly controversial nomination battle which ended with a 42–58 rejection vote on October 23.[16]

Ginsburg's nomination collapsed for entirely different reasons from Bork's rejection, as he almost immediately came under some fire when NPR's Nina Totenberg[17] revealed that Ginsburg had used marijuana "on a few occasions" during his student days in the 1960s and while an assistant professor at Harvard in the 1970s."

Can you imagine a nominee having to withdraw because they'd smoked marijuana "on a few occasions" more than 15 years ago? Its amazing how much the views on marijuana have changed since the 1980s.

We don't even know if he inhaled.

 

[St. Louis Hawk]

The point I was making about Bork, followed by the circus with Thomas’s confirmation, was that the acrimony between the two sides had been building for decades. One can point to the Bork nomination as a turning point (for the worse).

I understand what you are saying. I think that’s a convenient excuse for the unprecedented recent actions of the cons. But we can disagree and thanks for keeping it civil.

 

[lucas80]

obvious reasons? as I noted in my very first point, his originalism was pretty damned obvious. After all, Teddy didn't exactly run to the senate floor to bitch about 1972 now did he?

Sure. It was a bad nomination. I guess it's easier sometimes to go ignore bipartisan opposition than to admit the guy was toxic. It's intellectually easier, and soothing to the soul, to pretend that the Republicans who voted no were duped or naive.
Never take a vote to the floor if you don't have the votes.

 

[lucas80]

Interesting to look at the Dems who voted for Bork, and the Republicans who voted no. Many of them wound up switching parties. Bob Packwood was forced out of the Senate years later back when being a serial assaulter of women wasn't a badge of honor for the GOP.