I was a young conservative in DC and the story about reporters pawing through Bork's trash looking for his video rental receipts definitely had an effect on me. Bork was qualified, but the attacks were so intense that his name became a verb. Jay's right.
This was certainly a cultural shock but many folks do not agree he was 'qualified' if you include his character which was seriously tarnished by the actions he took as the Saturday Night Massacre. That sort of ethical uncertainty was intolerable to many and not just on the left.
Republicans voted against him in the Senate. As unimaginable as that seems now, this was not some witch hunt. The man had serious deficiencies that I think have been downplayed or forgotten by the passage of time. It's more folklore than reality now.
The party of personal responsibility, ladies and gentlemen!
The list of videos was obtained by Dolan by simply asking the manager of the video store he used for the list. And it was done to highlight Bork’s opposition to the right to privacy. No garbage cans were violated in this process.
Bork's willingness to fire Cox instead of resigning was a stain on him and the rule of law during watergate. I thought that's what doomed him during confirmation hearings. He's a weak man willing to do a corrupt president's bidding. Exactly what we see going on now.
"If Democrats don't line up to confirm partisan hacks then Republicans will simply be forced into fascism."
Oh and if we’d let Bork on we wouldn’t be here? Bork’s Saturday night shenanigans showed a disdain for rule of law. Likely, we’d have gotten here sooner.
I don’t think I ever connected the dots on where “borked” came from. But it also happened a year before I was born, so…
Nordlinger's broad point is right, but going back as far as Bork is too far removed in time for me. There was plenty of cross-aisle stuff since then. In the immediate instance, it was the Democratic anti-Muslim bigotry that allowed Bove.
"Qualified" and morally veracious are not synonymous.
Just what we needed, another facist on the Supreme court.
You are dead wrong on this one. Bork would have sped up the process of turning the US into an authoritarian oligarchy. Democrats are *not* responsible for what's happened to the Republican party. That's a path they put themselves on post-Eisenhower.
Tom, your blind spots are vast.
He disqualified himself the moment he fired Archibald Cox. But the fact that you would argue this illustrates how Trump and MAGA were able to take over your party.
I think you are genuine in your neverTrump stance, but this is the most MAGA thing you have ever written.
What a humiliating take. Straight up abuser mentality: “look what you MADE me do!” The venn diagram of victim and abuser has conservatives planted firmly in the middle.
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Moscow Mitch was always going to stack the SCOTUS with radicals. republicans have a thousand excuses for the horrible things they're "made to do." To compare Bork's treatment to the republican's treatment of the SCOTUS is beyond absurd. She shouldn't have been wearing a short skirt, right Tom?
It is absurd and not correct to blame Democrats for the current state of the Republican party.
I'm not sure one thing (confirming Bork) logically leads to 40 years of political tranquility from the right. Who knows?
I’m a fan of yours but disagree here. Using Bork as the ur-cause of the current shit show is more of a confession than exculpatory for conservatives. A proportional response would have been to, once in a while, be mean to a Dem nominee, not burn our entire system of government to the ground.
Tom, I like your cat, but your willful ignorance and/or delusion here is really bleak.
As if being a young "Conservative " was ever a good/intelligent thing. GFY
Bork should not have been nominated and it was bad judgement to do so. Kennedy was nominated and approved 97-0 in his place so this is all a silly conversation.
Maybe what we’re saying is “normally approving a nominee was just a rubber stamp and in this case it was treated like a big deal” to which I say good. The short window of time in which we treated approving nominees as something important and between rubber stamp and partisan bullshit was good
Glad Tom decided to take this personal—and therefore unassailable—fork from Nordlinger's rant rather than have to acknowledge that R/cons have been "painting" as socialist or communist those who think people should have shelter, food, and clean air and water since père Nichols was in short pants.
So the Democrats made the GOP do it? What exactly is the argument here? Something along the lines of: "Because you didn't accept our moderate conservatism we had to do the fascism?"
Some people believe there is no guaranteed right to privacy unless granted by specific legislation.
Yours is a more genteel version of the argument offered by the man in this cartoon.
I'm the same age as you, I got a degree in Political Science (never used), I voted for Reagan in 80, realized within the first year what republicans really were, and never voted R again. Never could understand how people smarter than me couldn't see it also.
Imagine being wrong over this, 40 years later.
With @democrats.org staying mostly silent, I guess they finally learned their lesson.
Centrist democrats have always gotten a fair shake from republicans, why are they so mean to nice judges that want to do Saturday Night Massacres, legalize poll taxes, and send civil rights back to the 1940s?
I think that if people like Bork had been given the red carpet treatment, we very well may have arrived at a Trump-like situation here all the sooner....accepting extreme right wingers gives them a taste for ever more power and softens up the electorate's expectation of maintaining their rights.
Bork may have been qualified, but barely. Qualified but inappropriate, IMHO.
It's always just been a game.
Executing Nixon's orders was sufficient to keep Bork off the supreme court. Bork was one of the original originalists, a stupid and anti-American judicial philosophy. Bork fought against anti-trust. No, keeping Bork off SCOTUS was the right move.
I don't think it is very compelling to suggest that because Dems tarred and feathered a guy as an extremist, that they brought about the current extremism in the GOP. Is it not just as accurate to say that Dems accurately identified nascent extremism and the GOP just revealed who they actually are?
If I told my child to be kind, and they responded by saying "Well if you think I'm a jerk, I'm going to act even worse!" That would... not make me remotely culpable for their behavior? And also would not vindicate their later behavior in any way. Some of us believe in right and wrong around here
Excellent point.
Jay and you are weak on causal relationships.
Murc’s Law undefeated, it seems.
I would LOVE to hear @stuartpstevens.bsky.social ‘s take on this, as a GOP operative at the time. He literally wrote the book about the loudly professed Republican “family values” & fiScAl cOnSeRvaTiVe platform titled “It Was All A Lie”.
These are some heroic contortions to explain Donald Trump, Andrew Tate, MTG, and Candace Owens. We have a moral and civics knowledge pandemic in our electorate and the only way out is for moral Dems and Reps to up their attention economy game and win
What was the animus? Why do you think he generated such a backlash? There had to be some reason
He disqualified himself through his own actions.
Pathetic. Blaming Democrats for Trump/Bove because we rejected a hard-right hyper-partisan SC justice THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS AGO? This is the intellectual sickness at the heart of the Republican Party - why you nominated Trump. You are in love with victimhood, deny resposibility.
Respectfully, bullshit. See also: Ken White Also, no member of the party that hounded the Clintons FOR. DECADES over a money-losing land deal - in a campaign conjured up by Richard Mellon Scaife- And replaced the first, fair special counsel with Ken Starr - Gets to whine about fairness.
I truly believe that Bork hearings were outrageous. I am not a conservative and I didn’t respect Bork’s decision of bending to Nixon. Nonetheless he was quality and I was aghast at that spectacle. IMO this was the beginning of our judicial downfall.
Well, a bit like saying Putin’s not so bad when you compare him to Stalin.
bsky.app/profile/kenw...
Willing service as Nixon's hatchet man during the Saturday Night Massacre, when both of your two more senior colleagues resigned rather than acquiescing, is, for many of us, disqualifying for membership in polite company, much less a Supreme Court seat.
The initiator of the textualists? No thanks. That’s not conservatism, that’s radical, racism and religion over the actual constitutional regime. The worst kind of judge. The new ones are corrupted as well.
I'm sorry Professor Nichols but you are *Wrong* on this with a capital 'W'. You can't reward a guy like Bork and expect things to be fine after that. Have you learned nothing in the past year about how rewarding bad behavior just sets you up for more of the same?
“Look what you made us do” is how one slouches toward anti-anti-Trumpism.
Judge Robert Bork was disqualified because he cloaked his social crusades behind his intellection (~cultivated intellect). He gave Democrats ~100th Congress little reason to believe otherwise. He was an originalist/paleo-conservative who harbored deep seated, intractable *social conservatism*.
Saturday Night Massacre Bork on the Supreme Court would have been a damned disgrace and everyone who put pen to paper giving us our Constitution. I wish modern medicine would isolate the "see I was right"; gene and nuke it out of existence.
Thx Texas Paul. As usual, these "conservatives" are full of poop. Always blaming Dems for their failings.
What a terrible take. Bork on SCOTUS would have somehow ensured that Bove would not be nominated or approved? I don’t follow the logic, perhaps because Jay didn’t advance a rationale. Just a stupid statement
Essentially, by not working with conservatives then, we're only getting the extremists now. Something like that
So the racist southern strategy, voodoo economics, Watergate or murdering nuns in Central America didn't bother you, but Dems playing hardball against a loon who later wrote a deranged book with the insane title "Slouching Toward Gomorrah" was unbearable? Heckuva moral center you had.
Tom, you're not a stupid man, and yet here you are dismissing why Bork was the problem and not the blocking of his nomination. Gee, why would Senators of both parties have an issue with the guy who fired the Special Counsel into Watergate and despised civil rights law? Hmm
And what happened after? Reagan got to fill the seat with his other pick during an election year, unlike McConnell who blocked Obama's pick in similar circumstance. McConnell was there too in the US Senate for all of this. So cut the bullshit here of excusing GOP entitlement even when they win
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No, he's not. GOP leadership knew how horrible Trump is & had several opportunities to stop him. They lacked the courage & principles to do so. Trashing Bork has nothing to do with putting Trump in the WH twice.
To be fair, 52 Democrats and 6 Republicans -- Chafee, Packwood, Specter, Stafford, Warner, Weicker -- opposed Bork. Said Strom Thurmond afterwards, "I would recommend they not send someone so controversial." Replacement was Kennedy, whose punting on abortion probably saved a lot of women's lives.
Opposed right to privacy. Originally opposed 1964 Civil Rights Act (later changed his mind). Opposed ruling in Griswold. Interesting position - advocated a Constitutional change to allow Congressional supermajorities to nullify SCOTUS decisions.
All of that and also a unitary executive fanboy.
The history of crying wolf is definitely a problem now that the actual wolves are here!
He was a wolf. And we pointed that out and they’re still mad about it going on 40 years later.
Yeah but now there are much worse wolves and there are few words left to describe the extreme degrees of wolfism, so they decided to just keep quiet about it
So in 1987 the Democrats should have confirmed to the Supreme Court the guy who fired Archibald Cox on Nixon’s orders because Cox ruled that the Watergate tapes must be released? Hard pass from me on that. Also hard pass on all this 20/20 hindsight 40 years later.
You’re completely missing the point. It’s about the rhetoric. Not whether Bork should have been approved or not. If everything is a 5-alarm fire, what do you say when it’s an even worse fire? All right that’s all I got. Good luck
Putting a blatantly and provably corrupt person like Bork on the Supreme Court WAS a 5-alarm fire. Should we just not sound the alarm on a 5-alarm fire because maybe 40 years later the GOP will cut us a break? “Be nice when you stand up to the bully & maybe he’ll cut you a break down the road."
And… scene
My work is done here.
The only way Bork was qualified was if you wanted to see absolute Executive authority enshrined by SCOTUS 30 years earlier. He was not a "reasonable conservative". He was ahead of the curve on the GOP's decent into overt authoritarianism.
You know what they say about hindsight......
But the argument “you got a qualified nominee rejected, so now they must do fascism” is silly.
I love how the party of personal responsibility still constantly blames the actions of others for their descent into authoritarianism
That was 50 fucking years ago!!! Do "conservatives" EVER stop blaming their own poor choices on others?
To a certain degree I agree with the point you are trying to make... I have spent the last few years in ruminating, lamenting that the side I want to be on uses very unseemly means to villify the other. However, at core seems to be how each sides view humanity... one sees it as a something to be 1/
Upheld and dignified, a shared trait that transcends the differences that are often sources of conflict... but the other sees it as mere commodity- and the trouble is, that is an infectious worldview which can be corrosive to all as we seem to be seeing happen in real time...
Republicans behaving badly (as in = currently scraping the bottom of the barrel) is no one's fault but their own. No one owns this but them. this is abuser logic. "See what you made me do?"
This “bloody shirt” argument has no basis in reality. Six *Republicans* voted against Bork.
Never forget he got a floor vote! Most noms now die in committee.
I'm a fan, man, but this is just garbage -- empirically, historically, & morally. Anyone saying "they were so mean to me I went fascist" just wanted to go fascist. More broadly: your fascist ex-friends are adults making free decisions, not passive victims of leftist overreach.
Bork only taught them to train judges how to better hide their ideologies.
🎯
Same. That sort of statement just removes all agency from Republicans. I mean acting as Nixon's hatchet man *and* his opposition to the CRA were reason enough for Democrats and Republicans to oppose him.
Also, what's even the argument here? That if Democrats hadn't gone ballistic over Bork, Trump would be nominating scholarly, principled conservatives? Come on.
well said. I was a fan of Tom's but the ratio of good to crap has shifted to the point where I no longer pay him any attention.
Well stated!
WS said it yesterday, but update to "Democrats". The people who voted for Trump don't care about Bork. You care about Bork, and you came around on Republicans.
And Harriet Meiers couldn’t have been as awful as Sam Alito turned out to be.
This happened 40 years ago. I think it’s time to get over this emotionally. I think Dems have paid a high price for it since. See failed nomination of judge garland.
Beyond character issues of one or two individuals… In my view as a lifelong Republican (now ex-republican), the party has abandoned principles that I thought were once bedrock. I don’t even need to itemize them because they are so abundant.
I'm 45. Democrats have been trying to meet Republicans halfway my entire life. Do you sincerely believe that compromising on Bork would've prevented McConnell from kiboshing Garland's nomination? Would've prevented the rise of Trump and MAGA? Come on.
Everything Dems do becomes THE excuse for Rs to do something they were fully prepared to do anyway.
Agree. The Unitary Executive Theory would have gained strength even sooner than it did, following with McConnell's judicial dreams realized. Blaming Dems for Bork was just fodder.
this this this
every bit if this
think Tom is reasonable about a lot of things, but he has terminal boomer brain on some topics
I'm f*cking 75 yo. Rs have a built-in advantage in the Senate. The electoral college is rigged in their favor. They don't really believe in fairness. They know their numbers are dwindling so they rig the system to hold onto power. Been the case my whole life .
Double that, and it’s still true.
Bork was not qualified
IMO part of the problem was, there was still a strong norm around "you can only block justices for being unqualified". So the Senate couldn't just say "We're blocking Bork because we don't like his philosophy" (and for that matter, because of firing Cox). They had to portray him as personally unfit.
If he was fit to serve on SCOTUS, (as Nixon promised in return for firing Cox) Ford should have nominated him immediately after Nixon's departure....he didn't.
gotta say Tom, some of your followers on the blue skies are spicy 🌶️🔥
Bork’s role in the Saturday Night Massacre broke a **strong** norm. Dems defended the Republic. Being democrats, they did it clumsily and in a way that let partisans like Tom beat them up over it (ask me how I, a life-long dem, know this). www.history.com/this-day-in-...
I am trying to be civil here: you dont get to start the clock at “the dems broke this norm”. That is bad faith reasoning. Dems defended the Republic. They did a shitty job of it. Tom and Jay still have hurt feefees over it. But the GOP is solely responsible for what it had become.
he WAS fucking unfit. firing cox was enough... to screw bork over, professionally speaking. he did that to himself, trying to please tricky dick. & for nordlinger to say nixing bork is how we got bove is patently fucking ridiculous. you got bove cuz mitch mcconnell is an asshole. the end.
What Bork did for Nixon was disqualifying. I’m surprised you’d defend his nomination even now.
Nichols registered as a Republican in 1979. It's not like the actions of Nixon were all that troubling to him.
Strong Matt Bors, "You forced me to be a Nazi" comic energy here. Conservatives hold odious views, face consequences, and then turn around and use that odiousness as an excuse for worse. Never any intellectual honestly, just, "you are mean to me!" Sad!
With all due respect, looking at it from here, it's hard not to conclude that your impression of this era is influenced by the social and nostalgic elements of that era as it related to you. Because otherwise, "on what f---ing basis was he qualified, Tom?" Because he was loyal to Nixon over the law!
The rejection of Bork was NOT partisan - SIX Republicans voted against him, too. Both AYE and NAY had partisan crossover votes And the DEEPLY conservative Republican nominated after him was confirmed ........97-0. (Also, weren't the video rental receipts Thomas rather than Bork?)
Bork was profoundly unqualified both temperamentally and ethically. And had a very clear paper trail of open racism. HIs nomination played out the way the Founders intended.
I'd also add that *Joe FREAKING Biden* ramming (the cleary guilty as all fuck pervert) Clarence Thomas through without even letting Hill's corroborating witnesses *testify* kind of torpedos the whole 'the system was biased against conservatives' canard. It's a false, manufactured narrative.
I hear what you're saying. But I don't think this holds up. I think it's telling that Bork's post-rejection career revealed him to be very much the kind of extremist in academic garb that his literal opponents claimed. I mean, was Carter, Mondale, McGovern etc caricatured? I mean, c'mon.
The arc of history is long; the American memory is short. No matter how senescent our congressional leaders are, there’s no Borkian cause and effect in play today.
Yep.
Exactly. Shoulda, coulda political speculation is useless.
He was all that they feared he would be: Scalia in a tinfoil hat. He supported a poll tax, FFS. That in this rancorous process cons suffered some deep psychic scar that justifies Garland not getting a hearing and Barrett being pushed through during early voting is childish blame-shifting.
I would add Reagan should never have nominated Mr Saturday Night Massacre to begin with. His obstruction of justice made him manifestly unfit.The stubborn insistence on his nom despite this & other danger signs such as his extremism on civil rights means Dems *should* have fought him tooth and nail.
It’s not just Republican Presidents’ extremist nominees. Name a Democratic Senate Majority Leader who made up a new “rule” and embargoed and prevented a hearing on a Republican President’s SCOTUS nominee. I’ll wait.
And, with respect, we didn’t/don’t have to accept what others/some consider(ed) the “cream of the conservative judicial crop.” We didn’t create Nixon, Reagan, Bork, Trump, Bondi, Bove, et al. You did. If we’d accepted Bork, we’d have arrived right where we are now, only sooner.
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” - John Kenneth Galbraith
A simple question, which Tom will not read, was there anything in his biography that might be disqualifying? (Obviously, there was. My memory goes all the way back to Archibald Cox and that astounding Saturday night.) Yes, he was an intelligent jurist. But how about the rest?
Hard to say what he would’ve become on the court, but my point is that the very personal campaign against him might seem like nothing now, but it was pretty shocking at the time.
Bjork was an odd choice for SCOTUS. Not even a lawyer.
Being tainted with the stink of Nixon should serve as a cautionary tale to all the current Trump sycophants.
The man literally called for ignoring an entire amendment to the Constitution.
And now we just ignore the whole thing. Funny how the time goes.
Is this a feint to change the subject from Trump/Epstein, DOGE, or the wanton destruction of our institutions and civil rights?!🤔
He was a pretty smart guy for one.
Okay, I don't dispute that it was "pretty shocking" for conservatives. Unfortunately the lesson many conservatives seemed to learn wasn't "don't nominate judicial extremists"; it was "nominate extremists who will pave the path for autocracy".
And coach those extremists to lie during their confirmation hearings.
It was “personal” based, first, on his being an obvious vote to overturn Roe v Wade, which he later acknowledged. Then there was his equally obvious antipathy to civil rights. Finally, his role in the Saturday Night Massacre. Not hard at all to say what he would have done on the Court.
I’m just here for the back and forth between two smart people 🤷♀️
His nomination blew up in a bipartisan fashion, it was not just democrats. It was by people who didn’t want an extremist. Given the current radical partisan court, it seems like a pointless discussion.
Watergate & the Saturday Night Massacre might seem like nothing now, but were pretty shocking at the time, too, I've heard.
Maybe people just wanted to keep their right to abortion. 🤷♂️
You point out that he was qualified. Was there anything in his bibliography that you felt might be legitimately disqualifying?
That’s sort of memory holing Nixon’s dirty tricks really, really hard. Before your time but still, it was patty cake compared to Nixon’s behavior over a decade before this.
He was Nixon's hatchet man and was very clearly going to be that same man on SCOTUS. How can you guys still believe this was some egregious, unprovoked act of war when his very nomination was the ACTUAL first shot fired?
Why is it hard to say? He was extreme enough that 6 Republicans voted against him.
Shocking compared to breaking in to his office to plant bugs and surveillance cameras?
"Jay's right" may have overshadowed your point 🙂
Okay. But he's right.
He's not and you're not.
When reporters went through Bork’s trash, the GOP had no choice but to embrace fascism.
If he's right, then every abuser who says "Look what you made me do!" is right, too. Bork has always been an excuse for the Right to release their "monsters from the Id!", but they'd have found another - the folks the GOP welcomed to the party in 1968 were always going to demand scorched earth.
Martin Luther King would like a word.
It shouldn’t have been a personal campaign against him. His actions under Nixon and opinions on civil rights were enough to sink him. “We will confirm a conservative jurist. But not THIS conservative jurist. Send us someone without this baggage.”
Sure. But Kennedy poisoned that well within *hours* of the announcement
Yes. The guy’s record (especially relative to what he did for Nixon) was in my opinion disqualifying and would have engendered the same result. Kennedy’s screed made it unnecessarily personal.
And yet Romney somehow came through the 2012 campaign without becoming an extremist? I feel like this line is tired and removes any agency from Republican voters. Look what you made me do! Or you could see what Trump is and see it as different from Bork, Romney, etc.
It wasn'tpersonal? You keep bringing up political disagreements.
the whole argument of “you liberals forced the right to nominate bove” strikes me as evading personal responsibility. You wrote a whole book on this and it was great!
Eagleton in 1972 was pretty shocking.
Oh, no. Did the party of Lee Atwater have a sad when the mean old Democrats said nasty things about Robert Bork?
No, the party of Atwater took the lesson that personal destruction works and they refined and perfected it.
Wow... just wow.
Interesting convo but I'm not at all feeling Tom's take.
Thought about this for hours this morning. There is no defense of the original post or Tom's take. Directly analogous to "lie back and enjoy it, because it's actually your fault for dressing like that" A telling comment on the inherent weakness of conservatives they constantly project onto liberals.
As I recall during the Clinton impeachment, Newt wasn't exactly holy, faithful or a good person. Even today, Trumpers will claim the GOP is pure and holy party of Jesus, defend 1/6 and all his felonies, but his opponents are wrong and supposedly violent
Morality on the right has been reduced to where you stand on two issues: abortion, and LGBTQ. Literally everything else is irrelevant. Corruption, war, starving the poor, none of that is part of right wing morality. Just those two issues.
And they are only against other people having abortions, or being LGBTQA+…
How about pedophiles
You're not wrong
That’s also the entire American Christian religion for the most part. evangelicals voted for Trump because “God wants abortion outlawed”
My entire fucking life I've been blamed and shamed for being liberal. Fuck them.
Newt is a human horror show.
I still see a clip of him on TV and wonder when did they drag him out of mothballs?
I'm not gonna go out of my way to defend Clinton. But the entire investigation that led to his impeachment was a fishing expedition. Ken Starr was hired to look into allegedly shady real estate investments, and all he came up with was Lewinsky. I don't blame Democrats for being loath to reward it.
Clinton was the first modern President to successfully argue that character doesn’t matter with politicians, and that it was unreasonable and naive to expect our leaders to align to any higher standard of conduct than simple legality.
Right. They were perfectly noble up to that moment. Got it.
But…it’s NOT really that hard to say what he would have been on the court!
Tom has a blind spot about the extreme right. Still recall my Reagan country Bircher uncle cheering the death of RFK.
I think it is more about decoupling what he supported in the past versus where he is today. There is a certain of cognitive dissonance that is not easily overcome. But unlike many he tries.
Yes, he mainly misses that it was always there even if he didn’t see it. They have had a relentless desire to reverse the New Deal since the New Deal. If only Democrats were so focused!
It was easier when there was a counter narrative based on both sides wanting similar outcomes but starting from different poles. Now the only acceptable outcome seems to be retribution and retaliation, even if it harms their own interests.
Democrats lost the plot when they decided triangulating was easier than fighting. There was a time when liberals and conservatives could compromise to reach a common goal but the extreme right was always in the background waiting for their chance to tear it all down.
Yeah Republicans in the 70s and 80s were so nice to Carter and Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro and Dukakis. And so what if they broke into the Watergate hotel to get/create dirt on the DNC in 1972. And they would NEVER dredge up a tragedy like Chappaquiddick for political points. Ungrateful Dems.
It’s usually Democrats I complain about refighting battles from the Reagan period (seriously, some of them are just mental about that). But I see Bork’s nomination come up here every now & then, usually in the context of conservative grievance that ignores all the lessons learned from that episode.
Someone mentioned that Bork was the first Federalist Society candidate. If that's true that's all you need to know.
And it’s worth recalling that Bork got a floor vote even when the judiciary committee — and some GOP members of that committee— voted against him. If the issue was the supposed grubbiness of the attacks on him, politics ain’t bean bag.
I respect Tom. I studied history and didn’t complete my dissertation because I was taking care of a parent dying of cancer and a new baby. But I don’t have the PhD, so my opinion obviously isn’t really worth shit. But you are spot on on this. He was what Ted Kennedy made him out to be.
As for dealing with an out-of-control media, ask Gary Hart. And before you say, he was asking for it, you get nominated to be one of the people who has a job on the Supreme Court for life, you are in the same position as Gary Hart in terms of asking for it.
Slouching towards DC, for heaven’s sake.
Saturday Night Massacre could’ve included his name in the men who chose integrity over the job. It didn’t. And his antitrust view was it shouldn’t exist (he was my dad’s professor in that subject).
The "blame the Democrats for the fascism" origin story is so maddening, it almost has to be Tom trolling.
No, Jay is wrong. Bork may have been unfairly treated but that in no way justifies the jackals nominating and confirming the likes of Bove, Kavanaugh and Judge Franzia. And it is not the Democrats fault for the fascists nominating them.
Reporters dug through his trash, so Democrats are to blame? Bork was not qualified. He should have been rejected on the basis of his choice to fire Cox alone. He should never have been nominated, much less given a full senate vote.
And you have to go back nearly 40 years ago! Cmon.
Whatever...
Bork signed his own death warrant that fateful Saturday night. No laurels for him.
Wait. Are we all supposed to pretend now that Robert %!#$? Bork, the Quisling of the Saturday Night Massacre, was wrongly denied a seat on the high court?
I see. It's all the Democrats' fault! Thanks for clearing that up.
It doesn’t do anyone any good trying to point a finger at which side took us over the edge. We have gone over the edge, we are in free fall, and gravity always wins.
No he isn't. Bork was fascist scum and never should have been on the court.
The Senate did not have any obligation to confirm Nixon’s hatchet man to SCOTUS. This is whining that Dems exercised their constitutional prerogatives and did politics once 40 years ago
Right about what exactly? Please spell out what you agree with. How does this cause and effect work? Where is the agency of the fascists?
Old enough to remember when conservatives used to extol personal responsibility and accountability. Now it’s just endless finger pointing and “look what you made me do.”
He carried out the Saturday Night Massacre. End of story. Case closed.
Wait so is was the democrats or the press’ fault? Or maybe just maybe the fault lies that he was a terrible nominee whose views are pretty in line with the modern GOP?
“The negative vote, which included six Republicans, was the largest in history for such a nomination.” www.latimes.com/archives/la-...
I’m sure that’s how you *felt*, but that’s not the same as being true. You can’t sit here and blame the woman for the abuse her husband doles out. Sorry. You just can’t. That’s entirely unethical. If you ladies and gents are just such good folks, you should have better weathered the storm.
I realize we all look back with gentle eyes. That’s why nostalgia is so devastating. But at some people, you have to own what happened. I also think, and not just you, that everyone is searching for the first domino. This ain’t it. I don’t think there is one, as it happens.
A sad day honestly, because I may finally have to admit to myself that Prof. Nichols may actually be wrong about something. Bork was "qualified" but not fit.
We’re all wrong sometimes. Honestly, isn’t that a relief?
No.
See, I take comfort in my errors. Being right all the time would be a burden.
I'm perfectly content to acknowledge and correct my errors. But public intellectuals are meant to be infallible, they are our modern day superheroes voicing truth when others cower. Bork simply didn't fuckin work...and I don't know what old school conservative bones Prof. Nichols is holding on to
I don’t feel that way about anyone.
Well it's more aspirational than anything else...to say someone is truly infallible invokes some religious pretext and I ain't going there.
I think you underestimate how shocking it was in 1987 to find out that reporters were going through your trash, but no, this was not the first domino. But it was an important moment.
This was around the same time we were pointing long lenses at people like Gary Hart. It wasn’t Dems attacking Reps, so much as the tabloid media getting super ugly.
I just checked. That happened in March of 1987. Same year.
Also, and I think this is important - that was all Lee Atwater’s doing. So, I find it hard to believe that the Bork thing is more shocking or horrid.
Hart? No, he did that to himself.
Lee Atwater said he did it, and it was written up in *checks notes* a small publication you might have heard of. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...
Make of that what you will. But it does go to show that there are far too many sides every story. Right now, we’re in one.
If you're arguing that Atwater set up Hart as a kind of entrapment - fine by me. But Hart had a simple path to staying out of trouble. He was a self-destructive candidate, imo.
That’s fair. But I think the original point was that these dirty things happening in the press, the picking through the trash and all, wasn’t directed solely at one tribe. It was everyone.
He most certainly did.
Gary Hart was a presidential candidate having an affair who literally dared the press to follow him. Not even in the same universe of problem.
Gary Hart was a dope...
I disagree. They are startling similar. But that’s ok. It’s way too early to be doing the forensics on all of this anyway.
Hart was set up by Lee Atwater. Your own magazine, bro. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...
I did that yesterday, mon frere.
Who went through trash? Didn't a reporter ask the clerk at the rental store for a list of Bork's rentals, and the guy handed them over? Were there also reporters going through trash?
Yeah. Because reporters hadn't gone through the trash of political figures before that. www.nytimes.com/1975/07/21/a...
Bork was a dick. I think we can move on. Can’t believe Thomas made it. Blame Biden for it?
We just would have gotten them both. I doubt there's a dimes difference between them and the right-wing clowns now on the SCOTUS anyway.
I like you Tom, but this is a stupid way to achieve anything. We both know conservatives have done plenty wrong to get us here. That logic that Bork got us Bove is weak, and in no way justifies Bove, and is certainly no way to get Democrats to admit mistakes. Don't jump on Nordlinger's grenade.
This is why we can't have nice things, and why we won't save democracy in the country. 💔
Going through trash is journalism 101.
Yup. My old secret service Dad taught us to completely destroy any print material before putting it in the trash.
Underrated. Pretty sure if the cops find something in a bin you set on the curb to be taken away, the 4th amendment can't help you.
You’d be correct
Nordlinger's argument makes no sense. Bork was okay because he had a buddy? Or is it that Bork was okay because he didn't believe in antitrust? We see how that has turned out, right? Bork was rejected because of questions about his character. He was not judicious.
Let’s go back to the founding of the country and rewrite the constitution while you’re at it.
In what horrible universe was Bork even remotely qualified for any position of power?
Remember kids: - always, always play the victim - always blame others for your actions - never take responsibility for what you do Donald Trump & the spineless GOP Senate are as blameless as newly fallen snow.
And disagreeing with you, challenging your positions is "painting you as beyond the pale." My God. The intellectual dishonesty in all of this. Even you, Tom Nichols, should be ashamed to endorse this bullshit.
"Made a devil." FFS. Or, "Did not vote for his elevation to the highest court in the land because he undertook a blatantly illegal, corrupt act at a moment of absolute peril for the rule of the law in the United States." Good lord.
You did this to flame. You know the bullshit here (crafted with usual escape / deniability routes). Man, wonder if there were any other items on Bork's resume that merited consideration (aside from Yale -- so impressive!)? Huh. So much fucking crying from the party of personal responsibility.
“Qualified” isn’t enough. There were plenty of qualified conservative candidates. Including the one who was finally confirmed for that seat by a unanimous vote of the Senate. Bork held views on the law that were well outside the mainstream.
Let's see how this works. Your defense of the hatchet man in the Saturday Night Massacre is having an effect on me. Probably not the one you intend.
Own your own choices for once.
Just as a little thought experiment, do you suppose it's at all possible, just hypothetically, that Watergate & the Saturday Night Massacre had any effect on young liberals at the time?
Other qualifications notwithstanding, does one involved in an attempt to cover up the crimes of Watergate (which the Saturday Night Massacre was such an attempt) truly deserve a lifelong appointment to the Supreme Court?! I mean, attorneys were disbarred, & dozens of people went to prison over it!
It ended Nixon's presidency! We use -gate as a suffix for scandals! And even a half dozen Republicans voted against Bork! And a couple Democrats voted for him! Democrats didn't do this. Nixon & Bork did it. Reagan did it. What, he thought a Democratic Senate should be fine w Bork?! On SCOTUS?!
But sure, going thru the trash of someone known to have been involved in the cover-up of what was then THE political scandal of our history, & denying him his rightful SCOTUS seat as a quid pro quo, that's the true injustice. JFC!
Just wait 'til Tom hears about Gordon Liddy busting in to Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office. It'll turn him pinko. www.loc.gov/exhibitions/...
So, you're saying this is just the GOP telling the Dems to "hold my beer" at the cost of our Republic? Naww.. that's an bullshit excuse.
"Look what you made us do."
bsky.app/profile/kimp...
It's the same guy who thinks Democrats excusing Clinton had a hand in the moral rot of Republicans that happened while Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Bush were in office. I'm not sure how time was supposed to flow backwards but it apparently does.
Like with the presidential immunity, which covers Trump’s whole life.
Republicans would have gotten here sooner. I love you Tom, however, what republicans are proving themselves to be since 2016 is how many of us have seen them for decades. He’s a better grade perhaps but the racism, tendencies to oligarchy, borrow money to pay for tax breaks has been there.
Oof. I'm usually a fan of your non-music-and-food opinions, but this one's a dud. The idea that extremist actions come from being called an extremist by one's opponents just doesn't hold up in any context that I know of. In most cases, the cause and effect seem to go the other way.
Oh no you don't. After decades of courting hard-core right-wing extremism (Southern Strategy, Christian nationalism, talk radio, Fox News) conservatives don't get to turnaround and blame the current mess on a SCOTUS nomination from 1987.
meh.
If Bork wanted to be approved, he should’ve had nothing to do with the Saturday Night Massacre. He had no business being nominated after being an open Nixon hatchet man.
I don't remember that far back, but what I think Tom is saying is that there are factors that are much more important than ideology. It's better to be stuck with a competent expert I disagree with than an unqualified, corrupt, moron... (who I also disagree with)
republican illiberalism is not the democrats' fault
Right. This wouldn't have changed anything. They make up things to be mad about if there isn't anything real. Certain things might slow their turn to fascism down, but we were never going back to Jim Crow, so this was inevitable. There's no way of placating them that's acceptable.
It’s basically Murc’s Law all the way down.
Clearly the GOP knew better to engage in such tactics which is why we never gained any new verbs like swiftboating. What a time to choose to stand up for people exiled from govt positions for their participation in blatant presidential misdeeds. Way to meet the moment conservatives
^than to engage
What on earth do the Dems have to do with reporters digging through Bork’s trash 40 years ago? The Court was politicized long before that, by both parties.
They didn’t even do that—after Bork claimed Americans only had the rights to privacy through explicit legislation, a reporter who was a member of the same video store asked the manager for a copy of Bork’s rental list, & the manager xeroxed it Nichols is engaging in fantasy grievance here
I listened to Republicans stop just short of calling Justice Jackson a pedophile, repeatedly, during her hearings, but no one is afraid that as a result of that, Dems will next nominate a lawless party hatchet man. Gtfo.
They know we won't do anything crazy. We know they're always on the verge (or beyond) of doing something crazy.
Because anyone who isn’t a card carrying member of the Republican Party is a Democrat and carries their banner and the Democratic Party is responsible for their words and actions. Meanwhile, Republicans are not responsible for anyone’s words or actions, even their own representatives.
Bullseye.
WHAT?!? Not only should he not have been on the Court, the dude involved in the “Saturday Night Massacre” should have been in prison. What kind of an AWFUL take is this? I’m surprised you’d take this position knowing the facts. So bad.
The Saturday Night Massacre was abhorrent and lead to Nixon's resignation in lieu of his eventual impeachment, but, what action of Bork's should have landed him in prison? The acting AG firing a special prosecutor for political reasons is unethical...but let's not overblow it.
No one was trying to throw Bork in prison. As if he were entitled to sit on the Supreme Court!
The poster I was responding to literally said "he should be in prison"
Yes. He should have been. For obstruction of justice. It was very serious and just because we never go after powerful white guys in this country doesn’t mean he didn’t commit a felony.
But he should have been thrown in prison with a lot of other guys who got away with it and emboldened even worse actors. Ford pardoning Nixon was a terrible, terrible move
Obstruction of justice is a felony
Tom is still a Republican no matter how much he tells you he’s not. This is his party now. This is why I will never trust any never Trumpers about anything.
I know but he’s usually reasonable and defending Bork…is not reasonable.
What offends me more is his endorsement of the implication that this Jay guy is basically saying “you shoulda took your medicine 40 years ago, now you got 10X worse.” Fuck that. Shitty people are shitty whether it’s 1975 or 2025. And the GQP is full of them.
the party of personal responsibility
He got an up or down vote and was voted down by Republicans and Democrats. He also fired Cox, which, I mean look where we're at.
Honestly, the distance between Bork and Bove isn't as great as Jay would like it to be. It's more a matter of sophistication and pedigree than substance.
I would have more respect for a man like Tom if I could recall a time when he stated that something a Republican did would obviously have affected a liberal & so he can understand why they went off and did something he thinks is too far. But I only recall the ratchet moving in one direction for him.
"Dems are the only ones with agency," continues to be a virulent mindworm among people who should know better.
Tom is covering for Jay and shouldn't be. Agreeing to fire the special counsel investigating the President, when your predecessors refused, should've set off more alarms than it did. As we've seen, you can rationalize away the rule of law under the guise of the Constitution.
Tom is never one to let an opportunity to take Democrats down a peg pass by, IMHO.
After he left the bench, Bork wished that local sheriffs would barricade federal lands to bring about a constitutional reckoning. He was, in fact, a nut bag. Of course the whole “look what you made them do” is idiotic even if Bork was Jesus Himself.
I absolutely disagree. I know you worked for Nixon, so bias surely must account for your willingness to overlook the part Bork played in Watergate.
You're right about his bias that he seems absolutely unable to contemplate, but I'm a year older than Tom Nichols, and when Nixon resigned I was 14, so I don't think he ever worked for Nixon.
I believe he was a teenager at the time. I am going to have to let my memory kick in. But here is what I know. I was born in 1956 right across front SF. So picture Vietnam protests, etc. Nichols stuck out to me because he has repeatedly said that the protesters were [fill in Tom's language].
Spoiled, blah blah blah. Never once said that men that couldn't vote were asked to die in an illegal war, or have any understanding of the costs. 3 of my brothers were drafted and a 4th has his number but the draft stopped. My husband & family come from Lynn, MA.
The point is that we have many similarities so that things he says and does and opinions he holds, stay with me. I am never ashamed to admit that I am wrong but this hits close to home. When my memory decides to join me, I'll see what I can recall.
If the topic is Russia, and specifically the Cold War USSR, there are few people whose opinions I respect more. His problem is US domestic politics during that same era.
It’s like he cannot, or will not see how misguided and harmful they ultimately have been. It would call into question too many of his most strongly held beliefs.
So I guess we should learn from what he’s truly an expert in, and read the rest with skepticism and bemusement.
I have come to the same conclusions.
You can’t nominate a radical like Bork, who at the time was far outside the mainstream of legal thought, and then be mad that the nomination failed
Last I checked there are no qualifications for SC Justice in the Constitution. He was a horrible appointment and opposition to his confirmation was a good thing.
Bork was Nixon’s bitch.
Your former political party is literally building concentration camps for immigrants And you're out here saying "if only you libs let the 7th worst watergate criminal onto SCOTUS"
Morally speaking, @radiofreetom.bsky.social ... Ethically speaking... YOU AIN'T SHIT
Murc’s Law is “the widespread assumption that only Democrats have any agency or causal influence over American politics”. In other words, Democrats are responsible for Republicans being the way they are and doing the things they do, either because Democrats provoked them or failed to control them.
Besides the causal relationship between Bork and Bove being absolutely laughable...we're counting poll taxes as part of liberal democracy now?
I wish we had more reporters like that today.
Left-leaning people clearly know that spite is a MAJOR motivator for GOP retributive politics, but using it to explain the rise of right-wing fascist authoritarianism in America paints an EXTREMELY vacuous picture of “conservative” principles. JFC. “Spiteful” liberals vote for Biden and Harris.
I was a young Democrat in 1973 who could not believe that Robert Bork, as the 3rd most senior official, would fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox at Nixon's request after his superiors refused and resigned.
Nobody called Bork a Nazi. Nobody is pinning swastikas on Mitt Romney. If Jay feels like he is being called a Nazi that is on him.
According to the interwebs, Bork frequently rented movies starring Cary Grant and Alec Guinness. Hitchcock movies were another favorite. As far as movies go I'm pretty much right in line with Bork. I'm also a fan of the right to privacy so I don't count his failed nomination as a big loss.
Who knows, maybe if Bork had been confirmed the change from democracy and authoritarianism would have already been completed! We're already losing this battle, if we start the "if only's" there is NO chance at stopping this.
Reporters followed Gary Hart and discovered Monkey Business at about the same time. So what? I wish he would have won the nomination instead of Dukakis - he was more qualified - but he didn’t. Better reporters as equal opportunity inquisitors than as the access-hungry lapdogs they are today.
Yet another example of how Democrats are responsible for Republicans being evil!
Yup. Once I realized Republicans are widely treated like an abusive husband (given the benefit of the doubt, she was asking for it, etc) and Dems are treated like the abused wife (how dare she voice discontent! What did she do to make him hit her?) the punditry finally made sense to me.
that's a load of crap...
Thank you.
“Look at what you made us do!” will be the motto over the concentration camp gates.
Damn us to hell!
Sounds like my son when he was addicted to heroin. Nothing was ever really his fault.
Conservatism is dead, like the Republican Party. Rmbr the old question, "When did you stop ? There's no good answer. 'Oh, so you aren't supporting tax cuts for billionaires anymore, great. But you did. Why was that? Explain.' Conservatives have been a joke for 3 generations.
GTFO Tom. You'll never change.
REPORTERS pawing through Bork's trash had an effect on how you thought about democrats, or the media?
“…reporters pawing through Bork's trash looking for his video rental receipts definitely had an effect on me” but, you’re misrepresenting the facts here right? his rental history was freely handed over by the store clerk. so, maybe the effect it had on you is a bit misguided 🤷🏻♂️
not to even mention that he proved himself to be the extremist dems purported him to be, so they were right to raise a fuss! i’ve no sympathy for segregationists. and for you to blame bove on that is *wild*
Saturday Night Massacre hatchet man you mean?
Bork's firing of investigators was, and still is, disqualifying. That he could turn a blind eye toward the law and justice should be disqualifying, and honestly, appalling.
You'd still get Bove's today even if you had Bork approved in yesteryear
Grand ol’ Party of “personal responsibility” for thee; reactionary without agency for me
So it is the Dema fault that that the anti-American party of today's GOP are confirming with their own majority evidently unqualified folks for federal judges & lawyers? It's evident since the 1990s it was all a farce to just get votes but still worth saying: lack of personal responsibility by GOP
So let's flip it. Which of the long list of crimes committed by Conservatives against Democrats in the last 40 years "justifies" the worst liberal policies or appointments? Unless your point is that conservatives are a bunch of snowflakes that need to be handled tenderly or they become the worst?
He opposed the Civil Rights Act, Tom. Why should someone with such an opinion deserve a lifetime seat dude? Especially in light of what other conservative justices are perpetrating.
Those other justices-currently serving- also weren't exactly honest at their confirmation hearings. It is not anyone else's fault the conservative political movement constantly exudes corrupt dishonesty, Tom. Began way before Trump.
Been a while since I heard that name. The guy who wanted to get rid of not only Roe, but Griswold, because these decisions conferred a right to privacy no citizen should reasonably expect? *That* guy? 🙄
Bork would’ve overturned Roe just as soon as the conservatives had the numbers. They all say they respect precedent until they don’t, and they strip rights from millions. They all sit there and lie with zero repercussions.
I very much doubt that confirming Bork instead of Kennedy in 1988 would have prevented the current situation. We would have needed replace him years earlier so it wouldn't have been Kavanaugh but I just don't see that as significant.
Why did you need a label like conservative? Why so desperate to belong? I can’t ever imagine saying when I was a young liberal…. Conservative was already a cult
There is always something the Dems should have done to stop conservatives from being awful. This mindset is literally the same thing as telling a woman she should not have been out in that short skirt. It’s SOP that R’s will do horrific things, and continue to blame Dems for forcing them to do it. 🤦♀️
You guys will never give this one up, will you? The man had no principles and was the first man to say yes to Nixon after everyone above him said no and was fired. That's the man you wanted? You can't love Bork and criticize anyone in this current admin at all. They're the exact same.
I blame "conservatives" who are in power rather than dodging blame by blaming from liberals 40 years ago.
Sorry. This old lament does not wash. And its "we" not "you" unless unless he's happy with the current situation
Yeah, how DARE THEY investigate someone nominated to SCOTUS. It's not like his history of enabling Nixon should've been a clue. 🙄
I mean... bsky.app/profile/davi...
"Democrats should have accepted us conservatives as fellow liberal Democrats" (because now the... uh... implicit and also retroactive threat of punishment for not doing so is being carried out) Yep, makes sense, what fault could be found Murc's Law remains undefeated
Seriously wrong on this one Tom.
Whew! I knew all of this had to be the fault of the America-hating liberals. What a relief!
But he's saying Democratic Senators were OBLIGATED to vote for Bork, you're saying that the *media* invaded his privacy. These are different claims. Senators should never be obligated to vote for someone they fear will do bad things in office, that's the whole point of a confirmation process.
"the democrats made me do it"
Daaaang. No.
Literally lololol
Bork's writings and role in the Midnight Massacre disqualified him. Looking for rental video receipts for salacious material is creepy, but he was an Imperial Presidency ideologue. If he were alive today he'd be the loudest cheerleader for SCOTUS. Also, Bork got an up/down vote in the Senate.
Bork was part of the Saturday Night Massacre and had no business being anywhere near SCOTUS. The right-wing support for him just shows that the desire to act lawlessly with no consequence has always been a key component of movement “conservatism.”
Jay also wants to blame Democrats for Trump and Bove. Whatever happened to “the party of personal responsibility?” It’s all just excuses and casting blame at others for the choices Republicans made. It’s childish bullshit.
Also, the vote against Bork was bipartisan. Jay’s upset that so many of his NR pals turned to authoritarianism, and he’s looking to blame someone other than his pals for what happened.
"Crime is bad right now, so we have to get tougher on crime" is so ingrained into the conservative psyche now that even Never Trumpers aren't able to look at crime reaching a 30 year low and go: "Yeah, so maybe our crime plan is working and we can worry more about something else."
I read Nordlinger’s post as the opposite of what the “party of personal responsibility” used to stand for. It stinks to me more of the party of, “You made me hit you.”
“Personal responsibility” as prescribed, applies only to SNAP recipients. other republikans are exempt.
Or in Trump’s case, “that 13 year old made me assault her”
Like conservatives never tried to dig up any dirt they could find on an opponent to use as outrage bait. This insistence that conservatives always be treated with kid gloves when playing the sport of politics is ridiculous. Especially coming from you.
Bork was disqualified by his participation in the Saturday Night Massacre. If he hadn't done that then I would say he was qualified.
Scalia was the cream of the conservative judicial crop and he supported the Bush v. Gore ‘only applies in this case’ ruling, aka Constitutional political hacking. Was Bork better than what Bove will be? Absolutely. Should Bork have been elevated to SCOTUS? Absolutely not.
I like seeing a lot of your posts even when we disagree. I think it's good, actually, to not maintain an echo chamber with someone who is intellectually honest. But you do not get to hand wave away the Saturday night massacre with "he was also good judge", good sir.
At what point did conservatives decide that if they followed the rules they would lose? So, we had McConnell breaking the rules to stack the court. Then we had Roberts putting his thumb on the scale for Trump, in spite of the Constitution.
Huh?? Because the Dems (and some Repub's) voted against confirming Nixon's henchman who thought 1A applied ONLY to political speech, almost 40 years ago, the Dems are responsible for the spineless boot-licking GOP confirming unethical, unqualified lunatics NOW? That's really weak. I expect better.
Nope. I usually accept or at least entertain your arguments but nope. Being technically qualified, and that’s a strain given his role with Nixon, doesn’t make him an acceptable choice. You’re dancing with Douthat now.
Pretending that Dems are somehow meaningfully responsible for Bove because of a canned judicial nomination 40 years ago is nonsense, and I trust that Nordlinger knows it. Hopefully an idea shared before fully thinking it through. Otherwise Nordlinger has a distorted sense of responsibility.
I assume that the Brooks Brothers riot in Florida is also the fault of Democrats.
Blaming Trump's SCOTUS selections on how Bork was treated 40 years earlier is grasping at straws.
Although I see the point, if you step back and look at a not just usa world, borked and al doesn’t explain the parallel rise of the same type of right wing no nothing populism around the world
The Republican Party has produced some truly awful persons and would rather blame others and not themselves.
Tom, I usually agree with you, but I’m not sure on this, specifically the use of the term “qualified.” Firing Archie Cox is the sort of thing a Trump lackey would do, which would make us argue that they aren’t qualified. In fact, we’d all agree that’s the sort of thing Bove would do.
Look what you made us do!!!! Robert Bork was a horrible human being and a totally unqualified justice for the supreme court. He fired Archibald Cox to cover for Nixon. That alone should have been career suicide.
So because we tried to hold one judicial nominee accountable to the rule of law then, thats why no one has to observe the rule of law now?
Nah. You ain’t pinning your party’s shitty people and choices on Democrats. Fuck that. Be stand up people and have ethics. That’s your solution if you could have only seen it the last 40 years. You created the machine that spit out Trump. Deal with it.
This is the absolute worst take I have seen in a very long time. On the merits, whether Bork was “qualified” is a tricky question. He had the pedigree, sure. But his views were plainly way outside the mainstream. The Senate actually gets a vote on whether the president’s nom is suitable for the job.
That is how the Constitution works. It gets to safeguard the nation’s values, too, and found in Bork’s case that his judicial philosophy was inconsistent with our values (it was). But more importantly, do you really think confirming Bork would have had any effect on GOP future noms? That’s insane.
Well you and Bork get the last laugh. His stance on monopolies ushered in unchecked corporate power that helped destroy this country.
I may be a bit older than you, but to the Watergate generation, Bork was the leading symbol of facilitating Nixon's lawlessness: witness the Saturday night massacre. Whatever his virtues as a legal scholar, that's what he represented. That's why he failed to win confirmation.
