Robert H. Bork, RIP

[PSM]

Link:http://www.philly.com/philly/obituaries/20121220_Robert_H__Bork__85.html

McLEAN, Va. - Robert H. Bork, 85, who stepped in to fire the Watergate prosecutor at Richard Nixon's behest and whose failed 1987 nomination to the Supreme Court helped draw the modern boundaries of cultural fights over abortion, civil rights and other issues, died Wednesday from heart complications at a hospital in Arlington, Va.

Brilliant, blunt and piercingly witty, Robert Heron Bork had a long career in the law that took him from respected academic to a totem of conservative grievance.

Along the way, Judge Bork was accused of being a partisan hatchet man for Nixon when, as the third-ranking official at the Justice Department, he fired Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox in the Saturday Night Massacre of 1973. Attorney General Elliot Richardson had resigned rather than fire Cox. The next in line, William Ruckelshaus, refused to fire Cox and was himself fired.

Judge Bork's drubbing during his Senate nomination hearings made him a hero to the right and a rallying cry for younger conservatives.

<snip>

His 1996 book, Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline, was an acid indictment of what Judge Bork viewed as the crumbling ethics of modern society and the morally bankrupt politics of the left.

Was he right: http://www.1045wfla.com/cc-common/mainheadlines3.html?feed=425022&article=10651697

Rest in Peace, Judge Bork.

Pat

[The Reaper]

RIP, Judge Bork.

You were right.

TR

[SF_BHT]

Rest in Peace Judge...

[Red Flag 1]

Rest In God's Peace, Judge Bork.

[alelks]

RIP Sir!

[lovemycountry]

RIP Judge Bork...You gave your best. Thank You. And YES, you were Right.

LMC

[Sohei]

Rest in Peace, Judge Bork!

[craigepo]

An amazingly gifted judge and thinker. The liberal establishment was very afraid of him, as many of his arguments were often unassailable. Here is the type of slanderous hyperbole Senator Ted "Chappaquiddick" Kennedy used to keep this good man from becoming a US Supreme Court Judge.

"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, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is—and is often the only—protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy ... President Reagan is still our president. But he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and the next generation of Americans. No justice would be better than this injustice."

His books should be required reading for every constitutional law class.

[Horrible]

While I did not agree with Mr. Bork's positions, the way his nomination was shot down by the senate set a poor precedent for nominations of future supreme court candidates. Nominations by both party's presidents have had to tiptoe around the issues during confirmation hearings for fear of their nomination being ramrodded out. So we, as the voting public, have no idea what the values of the highest judges in the land hold up until they begin weighing in on cases. Of course, we can infer their positions based on their body of work as judges, but thats not always an effective method.

Regardless, RIP sir.

[Gypsy]

Rest in Peace, Judge Bork.

[BOfH]

RIP Judge, you will be missed. You were indeed right.