Why were Robert Bork's video rentals important?

[Love_Rhombus]

I was just reading the Wiki article on Bork, and it mentions that one of the pieces of ammunition used against him was his video rental record. What’s so ominous about Ruthless People, anyway?

[ratatoskK]

Are you sure you’re not thinking about Clarence Thomas and his porno rentals?

[Exapno_Mapcase]

Why didn’t you just check wiki?

Two dramatic events of the Senate debate were Senator Edward Kennedy’s speech opposing Bork’s nomination and the disclosure of Bork’s video rental history. Within an hour of Bork’s nomination to the Court, Kennedy (D-MA) took to the Senate floor with a strong condemnation of it. “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, children could not be taught about evolution,” said Kennedy. TV commercials (narrated by the late liberal actor Gregory Peck) attacked Bork as an extremist. Kennedy’s speech fueled widespread public skepticism of Bork’s nomination. Others, including Bork himself, found the speech an egregious misrepresentation of his views. During debate over his nomination, Bork’s video rental history was leaked to the press, which led to the enactment of the 1988 Video Privacy Protection Act. His video rental history included A Day at the Races, Ruthless People and The Man Who Knew Too Much.

The answer to the OP is that nothing in Bork’s rental history was the issue. The issue was that some numbnuts at a local weekly dug up and published the information:

http://www.fair.org/extra/9904/bork.html

The infamous video rentals entered the public record not through a Democratic subpoena, but via an article in City Paper, a weekly newspaper in Washington D.C. (The New Republic admitted this in a correction to Rothstein’s essay: 2/22/99). Almost immediately, the paper was denounced by liberal groups and Democrats on the Judiciary Committee for invading Bork’s privacy.

The ACLU complained to the editor of City Paper, comparing the exposure to breaking and entering. People for the American Way, which led the fight against Bork’s confirmation, urged the District of Columbia to pass a law to make sure it wouldn’t happen again. “We believe the release of such information is a clear violation,” a People for the American Way lobbyist told the Chicago Tribune (11/20/87).

By going beyond Bork’s public history of comment on legal subjects to dig up any conceivable dirt, the City Paper did itself and the side it thought it was helping immediate harm. In addition, it did the process long-term harm that can be seen in today’s anything-goes blogosphere circus.

The video rental bit was such a non-issue that I didn’t even remember it happening, so I’m surprised anyone would bother to give it such prominence in the wiki article. But that’s all there was to it: the act of intrusion, not the resulting information given out.

[Love_Rhombus]

The Wiki article on him mentioned specific titles, so I assumed there was some significance to them. Sorry.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

Not your fault. It’s definitely a poorly written article. Perhaps too many hands got into it.

I assume the only reason they mention specific titles is to show that they meant nothing.

[commasense]

FYI, Washington’s City Paper carries The Straight Dope column, as does its sister publication of the same name in Baltimore.

I hadn’t recalled that it was the City Paper that had dug up Bork’s video rentals. A disappointing episode in the life of an otherwise estimable publication.

[Colibri]

@Exapno Mapcase

By going beyond Bork’s public history of comment on legal subjects to dig up any conceivable dirt, the City Paper did itself and the side it thought it was helping immediate harm. In addition, it did the process long-term harm that can be seen in today’s anything-goes blogosphere circus.

The way I recall the case is that Bork was a controversial nominee in part because he did not recognize a constitutional right to privacy (on which Roe vs. Wade hinges). The reporter was not necessarily trying to dig up dirt per se, but deliberately abusing Bork’s own right to privacy in order to make a point. If there was no right to privacy, Bork would really have had no reason to complain. In fact, the passage of the Video Privacy Act was no doubt something the City Paper saw as a positive response to its actions.