Re: [OpenHeroQuest] Digest Number 147

From: Andrew J. Weill <aweill_at_fYa7U75JDPfc6GGE4HxRE4Kzg1ZmmclmxR1tJ6vF-IyV181mpfG_QGAiz3KsBKWioQo8R>
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 11:09:44 -0700


Chris Lemens wrote:

>The first half was not the proposition--I never said
>unfair. The proposition was that the Democrats
>discovered that they could use a mechanism to block
>judicial appointments where they disagreed
>philospohically. This had not been done before--it
>was infact unprecedented. They have since extended it
>to people much less extreme than Bork. The
>Republicans have retaliated. The point is that this
>dynamic is a loser for the people.

I disagree that this dynamic originated with Bork. It is certainly as old as the appointment of John Marshall, which the Jeffersonians were strongly opposed to for political reasons. The notion that something unprecedented happened to Bork is a fiction invented by some to promote a false sense of being wronged. You may remember Nixon's failed appointments of Carswell and Haynesworth; those, like Bork, were flawed nominations.

If you really think the U.S. would have been well served by having an ideologue who believes that the moral failings of the nation are the fault of the liberals of the 1960's, then so be it. Some of us felt rather strongly that this was a remarkably shallow and dangerous attitude for a Justice of the Supreme Court. As I read the later writings of Bork, and contemplate that these could have become the opinions of the Supreme Court, I feel that indeed Providence has not completely deserted the republic.

Andy Weill            

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