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More Good News for Sotomayor

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on June 22, 2009 - 11:06am

Politico has an article today reporting that Republicans are disappointed that Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court hasn't turned out to be "the political lightning rod some in their party had hoped she would be."

Of course, that just means that right-wing groups will just have to try that much harder:

Curt Levey, executive director of the conservative group Committee for Justice, said senators are often slow to get into politically thorny fights — and do so only after a passionate showing by their base. Levey said he expects GOP senators to gear up for the fight, particularly during the confirmation proceedings. And he said that he is pushing the Republicans hard to delay a final Senate confirmation vote until after the monthlong August recess, to give opposition groups enough time to spotlight any controversial statements Sotomayor makes during the hearings.

“She is sort of like a Robert Bork: She’s very opinionated, and when she should be silent, she isn’t,” Levey said.

Speaking of Bork, the Wonk Room points us to this new interview with him and, shockingly, he doesn't like Sotomayor ... or pretty much anyone else for that matter:

What are your thoughts about Judge Sotomayor's nomination?

I think it was a bad mistake. Her comments about the wise Latina suggest identity-group jurisprudence. She also has a reputation for bullying counsel. And her record is not particularly distinguished. Far from it. And it is unusual to nominate somebody who states flatly that she was the beneficiary of affirmative action. But I can't believe she will be any worse than some recent white male appointees.

Anyone you'd care to name?

I could, but you don't want the estate of these people suing me, do you?

As it's currently composed, this is sometimes called a conservative court.

I don't see it at all. It's a very left-leaning, liberal court.

Could you elaborate? Compared to what?

Well, compared to what the Constitution actually says. They tend to enact the agenda or the preferences of a group that thinks of itself as the intellectual elite.

Frankly, the fact that Bork sees nothing he likes in Sotomayor is a huge positive in her favor considering that, since his own defeat to the Supreme Court in 1987, he's become a certified crank:

Robert Bork has carved out a niche for himself as an acerbic commentator on the Supreme Court, as well as various cultural issues. In fact, to Bork the two topics are closely related and the Supreme Court’s “illegitimacy” and its departure from the Constitution are in many ways responsible for our growing “cultural depravity.”

According to Bork, we are rapidly becoming a fragmented society that has totally lost its nerve and is now either unwilling or unable “to suppress public obscenity, punish crime, reform welfare, attach stigma to the bearing of illegitimate children, resist the demands of self-proclaimed victim groups for preferential treatment, or maintain standards of reason and scholarship.” Abortion, technology, affluence, hedonism, and modern liberalism are gradually ruining our culture and everywhere you look “the rot is spreading.”

Bork has denounced the public education system that “all too often teaches moral relativism and depravity.” He considers sensitivity training to be little more than “America’s version of Maoist re-education camps.” He has shared his fear that recognition of gay marriage would lead to accommodation of “man-boy associations, polygamists and so forth.” And he has criticized the feminist movement for “intimidat[ing] officials in ways that are destructive of family, hostile to masculinity, damaging to the military and disastrous for much education.”

It appears as if almost everything within contemporary culture possesses the capacity to offend Bork. He attacks movies for featuring “sex, violence and vile language.” He faults television for taking “a neutral attitude toward adultery, prostitution, and pornography” and for portraying homosexuals as “social victims.” As for the art world, most of what is produced is “meaningless, uninspired, untalented or perverse.” He frets that the “pornographic video industry is now doing billions of dollars worth of business” and the invention of the Internet will merely result in the further indulgence of “salacious and perverted tastes.” When it comes to music, “rock and rap are utterly impoverished … emotionally, aesthetically, and intellectually.”

More to the point, Bork is not content merely to criticize; he wants the government to do something about it. “Sooner or later,” he claims “censorship is going to have to be considered as popular culture continues plunging to ever more sickening lows.” So committed is he to this cause that he dedicated an entire chapter in his 1996 book Slouching Toward Gomorrah to making “The Case for Censorship.” In it, he advocates censoring “the most violent and sexually explicit material now on offer, starting with obscene prose and pictures available on the Internet, motion pictures that are mere rhapsodies to violence, and the more degenerate lyrics of rap music.”

When asked by Christianity Today about how he would decide what should and should not be censored, Bork announced: “I don’t make any fine distinctions; I’m just advocating censorship.”

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We’ll Take That As a Good Sign

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on December 15, 2008 - 5:04pm

Robert Bork does not have high hopes for the future of the judiciary under President Barack Obama:

Former Supreme Court Justice nominee Robert Bork predicts that President-elect Barack Obama’s judicial nominees will orchestrate a profound sea change in U.S. jurisprudence, legalizing same-sex marriage, restricting or eliminating the death penalty, and tying the hands of the military so severely that “commanders in the field will have to be gathering evidence while they’re fighting.”

In an exclusive interview with Newsmax, Bork, who currently serves as a distinguished legal scholar at the Hudson Institute, criticized Obama’s view of the role of judges … Bork’s expectations for the future of American jurisprudence, once Obama’s nominees are seated?

“I would think that same-sex marriage, homosexual marriage, is one that’s likely to be ordered by the courts,” he says. “Roe v. Wade abortion will not change.

“They’ve been whittling away at the death penalty, although the death penalty is mentioned about four times in the Constitution as allowed if certain procedures are followed,” Bork adds. “It’s up to the people whether they want it or not. But this court has been whittling away at it without any warrant from the Constitution and without any warrant from the people. And I think they may just outlaw the death penalty altogether -- which I think is not only bad judicial interpretation, but may endanger lives.”

We, of course, take Bork's angst as a good sign since it is not as if he is any sort of moderate, middle-of-the-road observer – in fact, he’s a right-wing ideologue whose radical views sunk his own Supreme Court nomination twenty-plus years ago.  And since then, he’s only become increasingly radical and militant, as we pointed out in a piece we wrote a few years ago about the rantings that have defined his post-judiciary career:

It appears as if almost everything within contemporary culture possesses the capacity to offend Bork.  He attacks movies for featuring “sex, violence and vile language.”  He faults television for taking “a neutral attitude toward adultery, prostitution, and pornography” and for portraying homosexuals as “social victims.”  As for the art world, most of what is produced is “meaningless, uninspired, untalented or perverse.”  He frets that the “pornographic video industry is now doing billions of dollars worth of business” and the invention of the Internet will merely result in the further indulgence of “salacious and perverted tastes.”  When it comes to music, “rock and rap are utterly impoverished … emotionally, aesthetically, and intellectually.”

More to the point, Bork is not content merely to criticize; he wants the government to do something about it.  “Sooner or later,” he claims “censorship is going to have to be considered as popular culture continues plunging to ever more sickening lows.”  So committed is he to this cause that he dedicated an entire chapter in his 1996 book Slouching Toward Gomorrah to making “The Case for Censorship.”  In it, he advocates censoring “the most violent and sexually explicit material now on offer, starting with obscene prose and pictures available on the Internet, motion pictures that are mere rhapsodies to violence, and the more degenerate lyrics of rap music.”

When asked by Christianity Today about how he would decide what should and should not be censored, Bork announced: “I don’t make any fine distinctions; I’m just advocating censorship.”  He went on to argue that the United States has a long history of censorship, and that such censorship “didn’t suppress any good art, it didn’t eliminate any ideas.”  He goes on to state that, were individuals to decry such censorship as inhibiting their individual liberty or right to express themselves, he would reply “… yes, that is precisely what we are after.”

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McCain: Bork Was No "Maverick Jurist"

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on May 5, 2008 - 3:26pm

John McCain is planning to be in North Carolina tomorrow where he is scheduled to give a speech on judicial nominations:

John McCain’s campaign said Friday that Fred Thompson and Sam Brownback will join the presumptive GOP nominee in North Carolina next week for a major speech on judicial appointments.

Both Thompson and Brownback have endorsed the Arizona senator, and both Republicans presented themselves throughout the Republican primary battle as “consistent conservatives,” particularly regarding social issues and judicial appointments.

The speech, to be held Tuesday at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, will be just one element of a broader outreach to conservatives next week, according to the campaign.

McCain is expected to discuss the kinds of judges he would appoint up and down the federal bench.

Why he is doing this on the day of the Democratic primary in the state is hard to understand.  Perhaps he is hoping to work his way into the press coverage … or perhaps he is hoping to keep a rather low profile while he delivers remarks designed solely to, once again, assure the GOP’s right-wing base that he’ll appoint justices like John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court without attracting too much attention from the media.  

Either way, he’s probably hoping that the press won’t bother to actually write about his record on judges as exemplified by, say, his 1987 support of Robert Bork [PDF]:

I would like to explain why I am going to vote of favor of confirmation [of Robert Bork], and why I do so without  any hesitation … I believe that what the Senate should appropriately examine in a nominee are: Integrity and character, legal competence, and philosophy and judicial temperament.  I believe Robert Bork is well qualified in all four respects … Judge Bork’s honesty, integrity, and diligence are above reproach … [he] demonstrates that he is not some intellectual “loose cannon on deck,” or a quixotic maverick jurist , but is a thoughtful, reasonable, jurist … [he] is hardly a radical, but is rather a very thoughtful judge in synch with the vast majority of his colleagues on the bench.  

…

First, and most importantly, is the question of Judge Bork’s view of the role of the judiciary.  Judge Bork is clearly a believer in judicial restraint.  He believes that the courts should not create social policy or arbitrate social policy disputes unless the Constitution clearly speaks to the issues.  He believes that in our republican form of government such decisions are properly left to legislatures elected by the people, not Federal judges appointed for life.  I have no problem with that view, because I wholeheartedly agree with it.  

…

I have no problem with my colleagues voting against Bork if they truly believe he is unfit for the Supreme Court – although I personally cannot conceive of how you could reach that conclusion … I believe Robert Bork will be an outstanding Justice and contributor on that Court … Robert Bork deserves our support and will be a great Supreme Court Justice.  

In his endorsement, McCain delivered a lengthy defense of Bork’s controversial views, stating that Roe v. Wade is "the clearest example of judicial 'legislation'" and that the rules it set out are "nonsense."   Nor did McCain appear to be a fan of the right to privacy, stating that it was entirely "created by Justice Douglas in the Griswold case."

Joining McCain will be Fred Thompson, who shares McCain’s affinity for Justices like Roberts and Alito and is already out making the pitch for McCain on the issue of judges, and Sen. Sam Brownback, who endorsed McCain after his own presidential campaign folded in the early-going, in part to help pay off his campaign debt, but also because he was promised that he “would play an advisory role in helping decide who he should nominate for the Supreme Court.”   That undoubtedly appealed to Brownback because, as he repeatedly stated when he was campaigning, he wanted nothing more than “to be the president that appoints the justice that's needed vote to overturn Roe vs. Wade."  While he won’t get that opportunity to do that directly, advising McCain on Supreme Court nominations will still allow him to play an important role in finding a Supreme Court nominee that will finally eliminate the right to choose.

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Twenty Years Later: Bork Backs Romney

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on December 17, 2007 - 3:38pm

For months, Republican presidential hopefuls have been wooing potential conservative voters with pledges to nominate right-wing ideologues to the seats on the federal judiciary and, more importantly, the Supreme Court.  Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani have been the two candidates most actively pushing this pledge, both having unveiled their own respective “judicial advisory committees” stuffed with judicial confirmation activists ranging from Ted Olson and Miguel Estrada to Jay Sekulow and James Bopp.  

But now Mitt Romney appears to have a leg-up in the battle over which candidate can secure the most militantly right-wing backer by landing the endorsement of Robert Bork:

Today, noted conservative jurist Judge Robert Bork endorsed Governor Mitt Romney for President of the United States.

Joining Romney for President, Judge Bork said, "Throughout my career, I have had the honor of serving under several Presidents and am proud to make today's endorsement. No other candidate will do more to advance the conservative judicial movement than Governor Mitt Romney … Our next President may be called upon to make more than one Supreme Court nomination, and Governor Romney is committed to nominating judges who take their oath of office seriously and respect the rule of law in our nation. I also support Governor Romney because of his character, his integrity and his stands on the major issues facing the United States."

Welcoming Judge Bork's support, Governor Romney said, "For decades, Judge Bork has been a leader in moving the conservative legal movement forward. As one of our nation's premier conservative jurists, he has been an important voice for our conservative values in Washington. I look forward to his counsel and working with him on the most important judicial matters facing our nation today."

Earlier this year, Bork appeared at the Values Voter Summit where he explained that social conservatives must use “tactical discretion” and continue to support the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, no matter who it is, in order to ensure that right-wing justices end up on the Supreme Court because, ultimately, “the object should be to get rid of Roe [v. Wade]:

While Romney may consider Bork to “one of our nation's premier conservative jurists,” that was obviously not the view of the bipartisan group of 58 senators who defeated Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 1987, rejecting his extremist legal and judicial philosophy.  

In light of Bork’s endorsement, perhaps now would be a good time to dust off a 2002 PFAW op-ed ”In Praise of 'Borking’” which takes on the Right-created mythology that Bork was somehow the victim of a smear. In reality his confirmation hearings were perhaps the best public conversation about the Constitution that most Americans had ever seen, and it was Bork's own extremism that led to his bipartisan defeat.

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Huckabee to Right: Don't Sell Out

Submitted by Anonymous on October 20, 2007 - 12:47pm

Mike Huckabee, the second-tier candidate many at the Values Voter Summit hope will become their champion, brought down the house when he said that he appeared “not as one who comes to you, but as one who comes from you.” In an endorsement of Dobson’s threat to bolt the Republican Party, the former pastor and governor of Arkansas came back time and again to the idea that some issues are “non-negotiable”: namely, opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion.

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