Robert Bork has died and his passing just over 25 years after his losing battle for a seat on the Supreme Court is cause for reflection. To briefly review the episode Mr. Bork a judge on the prestigious D.C. Circuit Court and before that US Solicitor General and a Yale law professor for 19 years was nominated by President Reagan just a year after fellow conservative Antonin Scalia had been confirmed by the Senate 98-0.
But Bork was different. First Reagan’s earlier conservative nominees William Rehnquist and Scalia filled already-conservative slots on the Court; Bork’s ascension however to take the retiring Lewis Powell’s place would begin to tip things rightward. Yet as liberal New York Times columnist Joe Nocera wrote last year “liberals couldn’t just come out and say that. ‘If this were carried out as an internal Senate debate ’ Ann Lewis the Democratic activist would later acknowledge ‘we would have deep and thoughtful discussions about the Constitution and then we would lose.’ So instead the Democrats sought to portray Bork as ‘a right-wing loony’….”
But more: Bob Bork was formidable in scholarship intellect and persona and liberals knew it. Commentary’s John Podhoretz writes:
Perhaps the most important legal scholar of his day whose work … was both accessible and deeply considered Bork was exactly the sort of choice serious-minded people should have welcomed. His nomination did the Court credit.…
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