Comments on: The Significance of the Bork Battle

By: Publius

Publius — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 22:41:50 +0000

Dan C,

Fascinating. Unfortunately, your comparison of what Bork went through with what Thurgood Marshall experienced, is, to say the least, wanting . . . Marshall sailed through the Senate on a 69-11 vote. All eleven opponents, including the beloved Robert Byrd, were members of your Democratic party. You may want to re-think “Marshalling,” unless by that you mean the tactics employed by a nominee who easily wins confirmation while opposed by a small minority of his own party.

As for George Weigel — which state does he represent in the Senate? Or is he a member of the House?

By: Dan C

Dan C — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 04:46:41 +0000

Also, when they did it to Marshall, but were unsuccessful, it didn’t count? So…it’s not called “Marshalling?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/21/opinion/supreme-court-nominees-were-blocked-long-before-bork.html?hp

Conservatives continue to make history propaganda, although Professor Esolen should know better. Such assertions like “unprecedented,” which is a mild summation of Professor Esolen’s propaganda, seems uninformed and, almost contrived to mislead.

By: Dan C

Dan C — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 03:00:12 +0000

Fascinating. I guess you guys don’t read George Weigel too often to capture his sense of vitriol, about just about any liberal living or dead. Because the only bad actors are liberals, and no ill will is ever shed on the First Things web site.

By: Tony Esolen

Tony Esolen — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 00:50:38 +0000

It will go down in history as the moment when an already overpoliticized and overreaching Supreme Court had its overreaching confirmed; the first SC nomination that turned into a national burlesque.

Right now, on Leftist websites, there’s unrestrained glee over Judge Bork’s death. He was a terrible man, they say — and yet all his terribleness seems to consist in his not agreeing with their politics. What a spiteful, petty, tawdry little idol is theirs! I think that George McGovern, who passed away recently, was wrong on a lot of things, most especially on abortion, but I hope God judges him with mercy, and the man was not without considerable human decency and virtue.

By: Publius

Publius — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 23:36:44 +0000

Edward Kennedy, that paragon of virtue, said within hours of Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court, “Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, [and] writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government.”

I laugh when I hear liberals talk about the need for civility in our public discourse. Apparently there is only a need for civility when Democrats are being “Borked.”