Posted on 12/19/2012 6:20:43 AM PST by cotton1706
Judge Robert H. Bork, one of the the greatest jurists this country has ever produced, died early this morning from heart complications in a Virginia hospital near his home. He was 84.
Bork was a national celebrity. Several years ago, my wife and I visited the Borks in Maine where they had taken a summer house off Somes Sound. I cannot count the times that total strangers would approach us at a lobster shack or park asking to shake the Judge’s hand and to assure him of their admiration and support.
Bork’s celebrity was only partly conferred upon him by brilliant legal work and his service as Solicitor General and then Acting Attorney General in the tumultuous Watergate years of the Nixon administration. (Andrew McCarthy wrote an excellent summary of Judge Bork’s work in The New Criterion a few years ago: “Robert H. Bork on Law and Life.”) But by far the most important fuel for fame was the riveting, not to say obscene, attack upon his candidacy for the Supreme Court in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan.
The vicious campaign waged against Judge Bork set a new low—possibly never exceeded—in the exhibition of unbridled leftist venom, indeed hate. Reporters combed through the Borks trash hoping to find comprising tidbits; they inspected his movie rentals, and were disgusted to find the films of John Wayne liberally represented. So hysterical was the campaign against Judge Bork that a new transitive verb entered our political vocabulary: “To Bork,” scruple at nothing in order to discredit and defeat a political figure. Monsieur Guillotine gave his name to that means of execution; “progressives,” those leftists haters of America who have so disfigured our national life since the 1960s, gave us the this new form of character assassination. The so-called “Lion of the Senate,” Ted Kennedy, surely one of the most despicable men ever to hold high public office in the United States (yes, that’s saying something), stood on the Senate floor and emitted a serious of calumnious lies designed not simply to prevent Judge Bork from being appointed to the Supreme Court but to soil his character irretrievably. “Robert Bork’s America,” quoth Kennedy,
is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit down at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is often the only protector of the individual rights that are the heart of democracy.
A breathtaking congeries of falsehoods that, were they not protected by the prerogatives of senatorial privilege, would have taken a conspicuous place in the annals of malicious slander and character assassination. In The Tempting of America, Judge Bork recounts his incredulity at this tissue of malign fabrication. “It had simply never occurred to me that anybody could misrepresent my career and views as Kennedy did.” At the time, he notes, many people thought that Kennedy had blundered by emitting so flagrant, and flagrantly untrue, an attack. They were wrong. His “calculated personal assault, . . . more violent than any against a judicial nominee in our country’s history,” did the job (with a little help from Joe Biden and Arlen Specter). Not only was Kennedy instrumental in preventing a great jurist from taking his place on the Supreme Court, he also contributed immeasurably to the cheapening of American political discourse.
In a way, Robert Bork had the last laugh. Ted Kennedy went to his grave a rancid, lumbering, pathetic laughing stock. Bork went from intellectual triumph to intellectual triumph, contributing now-classic studies to the library of legal understanding and penning two of the most important works of social criticism of the last several decades, the aofremention Tempting of America and Slouching Toward Gemorrah, wild bestsellers both. I am proud to say that this spring Encounter Books will be publishing a memoir by Judge Bork called Saving Justice: Watergate,. The Saturday Night Massacre, and Other Adventures of a Solicitor General.
Bob Bork was a great American and a dear friend, witty, compassionate, with a laser-like analytical mind and compendious store of cultural reference. (It was he who introduced me to John Buchan’s marvelous memoir Memory, Hold the Door.) I will have more to say about Bob and his achievement in due course. For now, I wish merely to register my gratitude for his friendship, admiration of his work, and sorrow at his passing. Requiescat in pace.
RIP, Your Honor.
R.I.P., Judge Bork.
You will sadly always be the Poster Child for how the Left sets out to absolutely destroy good people through smear campaigns orchestrated by their fellow travelers in the mainstream media.
I wonder how the media will portray him? Never mind. Stupid question.
Perhaps if Judge Bork had been on the Supreme Court, we might not have Obamacare.
Rest in peace, Judge.
Well it might be a bit of a stretch to see the bright side, but if he would have won confirmation way back then, Obama might be filling his vacancy today....
A low they've since surpassed by a long shot, unfortunately.
After reading the article, trying not to think ill of the dead (i.e. Kennedy) but rather bless Bork for having to endure it. R.I.P.
Thanks to Ted Kennedy and his ilk, the country was denied a great jurist on the Supreme Court.
Bork was an intellectual giant, a brilliant legal mind. Of course, in Lib-landia, that’s not what they’re looking for. They want the best Hispanic female who is pro-abortion under any and all circumstances. Et cetera.
A great man, who did not deserve what the Democrats did to him.
You can trace the takeover of the Democrat Party by the Left to 1987. This is when the mask came off, and from 1988 to 1992, the major Dems went from pro-life to pro-abort.
In 1991, the Dems went full bore against Clarence Thomas and supported the liar Anita Hill. This was the spring after our tremendous military victory in the First Gulf War. The complicity of media with the Dems to destroy a conservative black man was unprecedented.
In 1992, the SOB traitor Bill Clinton was their standard bearer—what a gift he and his wife were to our country and our culture.The tactics of personal destruction and media complicity was perfected in those years. Like the Communist Party that had taken them over, the Dems never yielded in their protection of their members, no matter how outrageous the conduct. They politicized everything.
Now, with their perfected takeover of the vote counting process, they will be almost unstoppable.
But Bork was the event that introduced us to the new Democrat Party, and 25 years of hell as they proceeded with their single-minded mission to “fundamentally transform” America.
I didn't agree with all his conclusions, but even in those cases, it was because of him that I forced myself to articulate why I disagreed.
When it came to opposing abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide, there were few who could make or communicate a better case.
R.I.P to one of the truly great ones!
I wonder how the media will portray him?>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Borked. ( A new word was created in the English Language.)
Sarah Palin was borked by the GOP and the left.
Slouching to Gomorrah was the first conservative book I read and gave me much to think about.
He did? Then why do the lying communist propogandists in the media continue to refer to lying POS scumbag as the "lion of the Senate".
Your Honor
TT
RIP to a great judge. He would have made an excellent SC Justice.
R.I.P
If Bork had been on the court. Obama would appoint his replacement.
The real case against Bork was The Saturday Night Massacre.
Amen.
5.56mm
Great American, great Constitutional jurist, RIP
Well, I know one thing, he is in great torment now, has been since he went to the grave, and will be forever.
Very true...and very well put.
“The truth is that the judge who looks outside the Constitution always looks inside himself and nowhere else.”
We’re losing all of our good guys.
#24 - Kennedy, of course.
If Judge Bork had made it to the Supreme Court we would not have Obama sitting in the White House.
Another great American has passed from the scene.
Dead ted was first and foremost a Communist Collaborator, drunken murderer and a loser. Lets call a spade a spade.
The damage done to this country by Ted Kennedy is incalculable. He gave us third-world immigration (along with a host of other abominations), the gift that keeps on giving.
On the plus side, Obama is not now able to appoint Bork’s successor.
RIP. This country was robbed of one of the best men ever due to the sick minds of sick people. Justice Roberts take note.
A great mind, a great jurist and a great influence on many. RIP.
May he rest in peace. Prayers for his family.
He was a good and great man, whose contribution to our legal system cannot be overestimated.
RIP.
Rest In Peace, Robert Bork!
You should have been on the Supreme Court, but the left denied you that honor. For that, they should not be forgiven.
Because Teddy Kennedy WAS "the Lyin' of the Senate".
Leni
He truly was the Lyin' of the Senate.
RIP
Robert Bork was a GREAT American and a good man. Rest in Peace Mr. Bork. Thank you for your contributions to this country.
RIP Judge Bork
May God welcome you into Paradise, Judge.
And we thank you for what you did here and for what you tried to do here as well.
*shudder* if he had been on the court.... Obama would be replacing him!
(for the first time in my life I am glad Bork didn’t make it on the court)
I had the same exact thought, assuming he had not retired.
One of the really good guys. Thank you, your honor. May you rest in peace.
My heart aches as all the history of what was done to this Good Man passes before my memory.
RIP, Your Honor.
Rest in Peace, Your Honor. Thanks for posting this fine eulogy by Roger Kimball.
Rest in peace, Judge Bork.
May he rest in peace. We are losing a lot of great men and only the dregs seem to be left.
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