Bork v. Bork (Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing)

hughhewitt.com ^ | October 19, 2005 | Hugh Hewett

[quidnunc]

Ten days ago I wrote about the Miers nomination in light of Judge Bork's introduction to a new book of essays on SCOTUS.

In this morning's Wall Street Journal, Judge Bork weighs in with a denunciation of the Miers nomination, which includes the fairly astonishing sentence:

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq aside, George W. Bush has not governed as a conservative (amnesty for illegal immigrants, reckless spending that will ultimately undo his tax cuts, signing a campaign finance bill even while maintaining its unconstitutionality).

This is the same as arguing that "Except for opposing Hitler and later warning of the descent of the Iron Curtain, Churchill did not govern as a conservative."

It is also striking that Judge Bork includes an assertion about a Bush policy — "amnesty for illegal immigrants" which is simply not true, as well as an exaggeration about spending that confuses Bush's deficits with those of the President that nominated the judge. Which didn't undo that president's tax cuts either.

I prefer the anti-Olympian Judge Bork, the one who would not be dismissive of careers as distinguished though non-judicial as Harriet Miers' or as contemptuous of her faith as the Wall Street Journal essay clearly is. I am also surprised to see Professor Gralia, Professor Sowell, Dean Starr and others lumped in among the "[s]ome moderate (i.e., lukewarm) conservatives [who] admonish the rest of us to hold our fire until Ms. Miers's performance at her hearing tells us more about her outlook on law… ."

In short, this morning's is an intemperate essay, quite extraordinary and unpersuasive. But like most of the arrows being fired at Miers now, it was not intended to persuade anyone at all but rather to inflame the anti-Miers crowd into a great frenzy of head-nodding murmuring. It may do that, although today's issuance of Diane Fienstein's ominous warning about Miers may have a far greater effect on the BWAE than Judge Bork's thunder. Look who's nodding and murmuring right along with you, friends.

-snip-

I really don't know what to make of the anti-Miers collective, except that they are anti-Miers, and have a list of a few people they'd have preferred to see nominated.

Judge Bork and the anti-Miers crowd are increasingly defined by their Potter Stewart-like standard for SCOTUS nominees: They'll know a good one when they see it.

-snip-

[gondramB]

"Seems pretty obvious to me, but in case you didn't know, Robert Bork titled his book "Slouching toward Gomorrah."

And besides the insult implied in "slouching" toward anything, if you substitute the word "Miers" for "Gomorrah" you're likely implying a sort of equivalency."


I didn't know that and I now get the point. Thanks.

I also agree about waiting for the hearings before deciding about her worthiness.

But it is not to early to conclude the the President felt he could not appoint someone with a documented conservative paper trail.

[Neville72]

There had been other hearings where justices were just as successful as Roberts or Ginsberg in not engaging in lengthy debate on specific cases and they sailed through.

Bork forgot that he wasn't in front of a law school class anymore and Senators who were out to get him anyway would use his imperious attitude against him. And it worked.

So now the man whose sirname has become a verb takes cheap shots with delight and 'borks" Harriet Miers. Pathetic.

[jjmcgo]

Bork is not only arrogant and bitter, he's a funny-looking goofball whose overweaning ambition led him to be the last person to carry water for Nixon when Bork fired Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox.
I know there are people on here who think the liberals sunk Bork but the truth is America rejected him because he was a skunk, and a funny-looking one at that.
I enjoy knowing that he will just gag thinking about Miers being on the court and not him.

[bkepley]

But OTOH, I was dismayed at Bork's tirade.

I was also dissapointed the first time I saw this side of Bork. I bet you aren't dismayed after this one. I wrote him off some time ago as unimpressive.

[Irene Adler]

Years ago, Judge Bork was on Rush for a brief interview. Rush does these once in a very blue moon, and this time he had Bork on. I can't now recall what issue they were discussing, but a (clearly not very bright) young, female caller opined that she didn't think something (sorry, can't remember what) should be illegal because she "might want to do it, sometime." Judge Bork was clearly so stunned at the shallowness and self-centeredness of her reasoning that he was completely unable to answer. He just blubbered and never did get anything out in reasonable response.

I was disappointed in his inability to think on his feet and respond appropriately to a very simple case of poor reasoning on the part of another person.

Ever since then, I have wondered if he cannot communicate with average people on their level (I have certainly known other very bright individuals who can't, either) and in fact may have no understanding of how most people's thought processes operate. From that memory, I am guessing he really DOES believe himself to be the smartest guy in the room and way, way above others. Just an impression, yes, but it has stayed with me all these years.

And I still think he should have been confirmed and would have been a great SC justice, but it does seem to me as if arrogance was part of his undoing.

[You Dirty Rats]

Churchill's personal hatred of Hitler blinded him into essentially ceding Eastern Europe to Stalin.

Utter nonsense. Most of Eastern Europe was conquered by the Red Army before Yalta even took place. The rest was overrun before Monty even crossed the Rhine.

And to call Churchill a "commie bud" demonstrates an incredible level of ignorance on your part. Churchill was derided as early as 1919 for his vehement oppostion to Communism. He also made a speech in Missouri you might have heard of -- where he mentioned "the Iron Curtain" publicly. He had used that same phrase in the Spring of 1945 -- see "Triumph and Tragedy" for the documentation.

[gondramB]

"
So now the man whose sirname has become a verb takes cheap shots with delight and 'borks" Harriet Miers. Pathetic."

I was not aware of how cheap the shot was until I saw posts 17 and 18.

I hear what you are saying about hearings previous to Bork's but i remember that hearing and Thomas'... it really seemed to me like the world changed. Frankly, if Thomas had not been black and had not responded with the "high tech lynching" charge, I'm not sure he would have been confirmed.

[quidnunc]

Williams wrote: Further explanation, in the poem the anti christ is born and the poem asks "What rough beast is this that slouches toward Gommorrah?" The slouching has nothing to do with stealthiness or lazinesss leading to a bad result. It's just part of the description of the ugly beast slouching toward the depraved biblical city.

The city in Yeates poem 'The Second Coming' is Bethlehem, not Gommorrah.

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

[Neville72]

You don't know your history very well at all. Churchill was terrified towards the end of the war that an ailing Roosevelt was in Uncle Joe's pocket. Churchill fretted, worried, wrote letters to Roosevelt and others about what he percieved as a creeping deference to Stalin in war strategy and post-war planning that was dangerous for the world--which we now all know was correct.

Churchill had it right, as does Hewitt.

[Irene Adler]

You are correct regarding Churchill.

[PjhCPA]

Yours and others' instant rebutting of someone's point of view by calling them pompous, has-beens, bitter, on and on and on is really getting on my nerves. That is a liberal tactic: if you can't refute their points, call them names.

I dub thee FRINO.....Freeper In Name Only!!!!

Make a point, disagree, but quit the personal attacks.

[inquest]

I was not aware of how cheap the shot was until I saw posts 17 and 18.

Column writers don't always get to choose the headlines their columns receive. Unless he repeated the phrase in his text, or insinuated it in some other way, it's not fair to hold it against him.

By the way, he's not "Borking" Miers unless he's lying about or distorting her position.

[Neville72]

Agreed. Thomas would'nt have had a snowball's chance in Hell of being confirmed had it not been for his skin color. The brilliant high-tech lynching remark shut up the likes of the beady-eyed Metzenbaum and Jabba the Kennedy for the rest of the hearings. It was one of the two great unrehearsed moments(along with the Ollie North testimony) in politics in the last 25 years.

[Neville72]

errr, FYI. "pompous, bitter and imperious" which I've used to describe "His Borkness" are adjectives not names.

[shhrubbery!]

I didn't know that and I now get the point. Thanks

Well, I own the book, so that helps!

Slouching Toward Gomorrah was given to me, complete with incription written by the great man himself : "To [shhrubb], who must be a very bright woman because she agrees with me on the flag. -- Robert Bork"

(Heh. The inscription was a little joke from someone who disagrees with me about the constitutionality of flag-burning statutes, and asked Bork to write that.)

Sad that Bork had to tarnish his image, which I had cherished, with this intemperate, churlish screed. Other idols too turn out to have feet of clay (Coulter and Malkin, most painfully!).

Anyway, I agree with you: Let's waiting for the hearings before deciding about her worthiness.

And if Miers turns out to be the utterly inarticulate dolt without a constitutional thought in her tiny mind, as her critics portray her to be, then I'll oppose her too.

[PjhCPA]

that's all you got? a grammar lecture?

[He'sComingBack!]

Same Here! HH is a RNC Flack. His position on Mier's is so transparent.

[Neville72]

So is yours.

[Neville72]

You apparently need one.

[gondramB]

"Anyway, I agree with you: Let's waiting for the hearings before deciding about her worthiness.

And if Miers turns out to be the utterly inarticulate dolt without a constitutional thought in her tiny mind, as her critics portray her to be, then I'll oppose her too."


Maybe she will be so competant that we will even get our floor fight AND someone the President knows he can trust.