Today's Supreme Court confirmation hearings are boring. Nominees fear saying anything that could derail their nomination, so they don't answer important questions. Elena Kagan complained about this in 1995. She has since disavowed her earlier beliefs. She does not want to receive the same treatment as Robert Bork. Robert Bork served as U.S. Solicitor General, Attorney General, and Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for Washington D.C. In 1987, Ronald Reagan nominated Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Democrats united against the Bork nomination. Robert Bork's judicial philosophy and professional history were antithetical to the neo-left. As a result, the Bork nomination became a mudslinging circus and served as the event which coarsened politics. After Bork, left and right felt that politics was a life and death struggle against evil. The Bork confirmation hearings created the modern schism between parties and ideologies.
Prior to the nomination, Judge Bork served as Solicitor General and temporarily as Attorney General. During the Watergate fiasco, he fired special prosecutor Archibald Cox. Both Attorney General Richardson and Deputy A.G. Ruckelshaus resigned rather than firing Cox. Unlike the others, Bork agreed to fire Cox. The left did not forget or forgive Bork's actions during Watergate.
For most of the period between 1962 and 1981, Bork served as a professor at Yale Law School. In 1982, the Senate confirmed Bork's nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals. As a scholar, judge, and professor, Bork advocated strict constitutional interpretation. To Bork, the Constitution was not something subject to "life experiences," value judgments, or a judge's whim. Justice's needed to interpret law and not make law. The lawmaking power belongs in congress and not the courts.
Before his nomination, the Democrats promised to fight anyone Reagan nominated. Bork's views and role in Watergate frightened the left. Less than an hour after the nomination, Senator Edward Kennedy launched into a tirade on the Senate floor. His "Robert Bork's America" speech envisioned a country that returned to Jim Crow and back alley abortions. Although the House of Representatives experienced some upheaval as a result of some Republican backbenchers, Kennedy's attack launched the first shot in the current political war between the left and right which wages to this day.
The Democrats attacked Bork with a fury never seen before for a nomination. Television ads narrated by Gregory Peck, best known for his role as the heroic Atticus Finch, warned Americans about the threat Bork posed. The opposition even obtained lists of Bork's video rentals and made them public. Apparently, the Marx Brothers were subversive. Pro-Choice forces attacked Bork for his view that the Constitution did not provide a "right to privacy." The Democrats piled on while Bork's supporters remained silent. As a result, the anti-Bork forces controlled the debate and the narrative.
Bork helped his enemies by his blunt and honest answers during his confirmation hearings. By the time of the Senate vote, his nomination was doomed. The administration lost six Republicans when the final vote came. His nomination failed dramatically. Only forty-two Senators, forty Republicans and two Democrats, voted for his nomination.
In the aftermath of the nomination fiasco, Anthony Kennedy was confirmed instead of Bork. He is currently the swing vote on the court. Additionally, congress passed an act guaranteeing the right to privacy for video rentals. Meanwhile, Bork resigned from the Appellate Court in protest. The term "Bork" entered into the English language and refers to attempts to defame and smear. A few years later, the Democrats used similar tactics with Clarence Thomas. Lastly, Republicans remembered the treatment Bork received. The war between the two sides escalated.
Robert Bork was more than qualified to be a Supreme Court Justice. However, the Democrats wanted a fight and opposed Bork's judicial philosophy. They also wanted to take a shot at one of their Watergate villains. The end result was a national disgrace and the opening shot in the current battle between left and right. For Elena Kagan, the Bork hearings made her confirmation process significantly easier as nominees are no longer expected to answer questions. Regardless, the political war continues and probably has yet to reach its crescendo.
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