Should Robert Bork have sat on the Supreme Court?

[kaylasdad99]

@KarlGauss

I’m not trying to be argumentative, nor do I want to hijack this interesting thread. But I’m very curious about your assertion that Bork would restrict ‘free speech’ to only that which is political. Is there a cite for that? (and, one that shows unequivocally that what you claim about Bork in this respect is true) Thanks.

@Richard_Parker

He explicitly said so in his 1971 article, Neutral Principles and Some First Amendment Problems, 47 Ind. L.J. 1 (1971). Most of the article is on Google Books, if you’d like to verify for yourself.

As a public service, the money quote can be found on page 204 of this page (click on the blue right arrow button until you reach page 204. It is the third paragraph of the section titled SOME FIRST AMENDMENT PROBLEMS: THE SEARCH FOR THEORY).

I am led by the logic of the requirement that judges be principled to the following suggestions. Constitutional protection should be accorded only to speech that is explicitly political. There is no basis for judicial intervention to protect any other form of expression, be it scientific, literary or that variety of expression we call obscene or pornographic.

And to the OP: no, he should not have sat on the Supreme Court. Along with the other factors that have been brought up, there’s the fact that he was nominated by a Republican. In a perfect world, that simple fact would have put this thread in GQ, and it would have been only two posts long.

[TriPolar]

I remember the Bork nomination. Bork was a competent, experienced jurist. But he was also an ideologue who wore his prejudgements on his sleeve. He had spent a career giving the political opposition to use against him. We play a funny game with the SCOTUS nominations where we ‘say’ we want an objective person appointed to the bench, but then we ‘want’ the person to end up voting in some predetermined fashion. Bork though, was at least honest. He made it clear that he believed in some IMHO insanely literal version of the Constitution which was unable to address most modern issues. At the same time, he was more than willing to explain to anyone, including the Senators from the Republican Party supporting him, how they were wrong, and he was right. His nomination and the Senate hearings were heavily covered by the media. I can’t prove it, but in the end, I think his pedantic style was more of a factor in public opposition to his confirmation than his political ideology.
Some say the Bork nomination, and the failure to confirm him, turned the war between the parties hot. If Bork’s appointment would have prevented the series of #$$%&s that followed I would have supported him wholeheartedly.

[Elendil_s_Heir]

As an aside, I remember one of David Letterman’s Top Ten Lists at the time was names for Bork’s beard: Extra Top Ten Lists

[Steve_MB]

@kaylasdad99

As a public service, the money quote can be found on page 204 of this page (click on the blue right arrow button until you reach page 204. It is the third paragraph of the section titled SOME FIRST AMENDMENT PROBLEMS: THE SEARCH FOR THEORY).

I am led by the logic of the requirement that judges be principled to the following suggestions. Constitutional protection should be accorded only to speech that is explicitly political. There is no basis for judicial intervention to protect any other form of expression, be it scientific, literary or that variety of expression we call obscene or pornographic.

Presumably the “principle” being defended by Bork here is the principle discovering the result one wishes to reach (e.g. a “political speech” limitation upon the scope of the First Amendment) in the fourth emanation from the third penumbra of the second star on the right.

[Elendil_s_Heir]

Well, of course it would be “on the right” with Bork, wouldn’t it?