dajo9 said:
In regards to Bork, that situation played out exactly as intended by the Constitution. Reagan appointed a nominee, Bork, who was far out of the mainstream at least in terms of the views of the Senate majority. The Senate kicked him back and Reagan appointed a moderate conservative, Kennedy, which the Senate approved unanimously.
To say that everything changed after Bork is just propaganda. Everything changed after Merrick Garland.
In your rush to be profound and partisan, you misunderstood the context in which the reference to Book was made. Not a surprise given you lack of background in the area. who often comments on things he has no knowledge, and therefore is unable to understand the context in which a reference was made. Since Bork, no nominee has been willing to speak substantively on the law. To quote a presently sitting liberal Justice: To wit: "When the Senate ceases to engage nominees in meaningful discussion of legal issues, the confirmation process takes on an air of vacuity and farce, and the Senate becomes incapable of either properly evaluating nominees or appropriately educating the public. This all started with the Bork nomination."
Spin as you might, the term "Borked" to anyone who went to law school means one thing. It also means that no one has discussed any substantive question in a hearing since then. Garland never had a hearing, and thus was not Borked. He probably would have been hard to Bork, since (1) he would not say anything substantive, and (2) was not very ideological. Nevertheless to quote President Obama, a lawyer by training: "Since Robert Bork, there's been politics involved in nominations in the past on both sides,." He's right. Over the past three decades, presidents and senators from both parties have ratcheted up the tension over Supreme Court nominees. And the lynchpin of that conflict is what has become an utterly meaningless ritual: the confirmation hearing
Re the impact of Bork, there are countless articles and books. I suggest you read the following:
Easy Reading:
Robert Bork's Nomination Changed Everything, Maybe Forever, Nina Totenberg, NPR 12/19/12
Don't Bork Judge Garland, Wall Street Journal
Supreme Court Nominations will Never be the Same, Bloomberg
From some legal scholars/writers none of you probably have ever heard of:
The Sad Legacy of Robert Bork, The Atlantic, Andrew Cohen (2012)
The Bork Effect, Natalie Roseberry, University of Illinois
Confirmation Messes, Old and New, Ellen Kagan, Chicago Law Review (1995)
The impact of the Bork nomination is taught in essentially every Jurisprudence class, and I can't envision anywhere close to your uninformed interpretation.
I will leave you with a commentary from retired liberal judge James Robertson: In the summer of 1987, I led a team of young lawyers to oppose President Ronald Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. Our work, which today would be called opposition research, found its way into the devastating confirmation hearing testimony of Erwin Griswold, the former Harvard Law School dean who had been Bork's predecessor as solicitor general.
I do not claim that the work of my little team had any real impact on the Senate's 58-to-42 vote rejecting Bork's nomination. Griswold was only one in a parade of powerful anti-Bork witnesses, and Bork's arrogance and tin ear for politics were his own worst enemies. As distasteful as the battle was, the end the successful nomination of Anthony M. Kennedy after Bork's defeat seemed to justify the means.
Nevertheless, I regret my part in what I now regard as a terrible political mistake. While the nation did wind up with a much more acceptable choice, the
treatment of Bork touched off a Thirty Years' War on judicial appointments. We have politicized the judicial confirmation process far beyond historical norms and undermined public confidence in the judiciary. It's time for a truce...
"We did it to Garland because we had the votes, and you don't" and consider instead where the argument goes from there. It goes on and on and on. We will struggle without end, each obstructionist act lacking any better reason than the most recent insult. This is the Hatfield's and McCoys. The Jets and Sharks.
Are there no statesmen in politics today? No game theorists? It is true that Democrats would not receive many points for making a cooperative move that can be coerced anyway, but (as the Harry Reids and Mitch McConnells of this world love to remind one another) there will be another election, and what goes around comes around. A peace offering, plainly labeled as such, just might lead to something that is better for the country than mindless, vindictive tit for tat.