Defenders of judicial activism -- i.e. judges
"making" laws -- are forced to stand reality on its head
to claim Robert H. Bork was not "borked" in 1987.
Clearly he was, giving rise to a new verb. That is a stubborn
fact of history. Millions witnessed it unfold as if one bad
surreal film. Or was it film noir?
"To bork" is politically to debauch, to
misrepresent a nominee's record. The goal is to strike him or her
down. Truth becomes irrelevant; in Bork's case, it was buried in
an avalanche of lies. What happened to him in 1987 in the U.S.
Senate was vulgar, cheap and disgusting.
A cynical public today will say it's "politics as
usual." Bork's nomination was not hardball politics, as one
pundit claims, but beanball. Bork was felled by nasty curve
balls aimed squarely at his head in his bid to be an associate
justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. It was ugly.
Eleven years later, another batch of Senate Democrats
solemnly pledged impartiality, then acquitted Bill Clinton of
lying under oath. So much for
their respect for truth. Justice, too?
Bork's trashing in '87 and Clinton's faux exoneration in '98
are tawdry low points in U.S. history. Neither is worthy of
revisionist history, nor liberal newthink, nor reshaping the
language. At least one would think.
Skilled wordsmith John P. MacKenzie might be up to the latter
(The Washington Post, May 21, "Bork wasn't borked,"). His artful denials of the trashing of Judge Bork,
his masterful manipulation of prose, bespeak the talented
editorial writer he was for a dozen years at the New York
Times.
MacKenzie now lends credibility to Orwell's dictum that
language itself must be parsed, even assaulted, for corruption
to be accepted, indeed praised, if only you have your priorities
politically correct.
Bork will be shocked he was not "borked."
Historians, too, will do double-takes. But then, consider now a
defender of judicial activism, MacKenzie, has an ax to grind. He
assails "substantive injustices that [Bork's] views of the
Constitution would permit." How unmistakably presumptuous,
and smug to boot.
MacKenzie tips us off early to his bias. Bork's detractors
were, he says, "defenders of constitutional liberty."
He chooses words, so malleable for ideological purposes, well, as a propagandist
would. Is
this how revisionist history is written?
What is "constitutional liberty?" It is code for
judicial activism. And shorthand for interpreting the
Constitution (i.e., freely) to say whatever you want it to say,
or think it should say but doesn't. Bork would simply not go
there, and that's the rub.
Constructionists such as Bork rely on intent of "the
framers," a.k.a. the Founding Fathers. Hip liberals would
prefer to twist the Constitution until it cries
"uncle!" to suit overtly political purposes. In this
way they sidestep legislative processes. Judges calling the
shots is more efficient, anyway, shortcuts to "social
justices." But in a liberal Jeffersonian democracy? That'd
be judiciary rules, not we the people, and the archetypal end
result of judicial activism.
See-no-evil MacKenzie says Bork "beat himself."
Sure, and pigs fly. Alas, he would have us believe Bork was
simply the target of "hardball" politics as -- get a
load of this loaded word -- an "aggressor" to concepts
of judicial activism. For one who calls Bork's writing
"caustic" and his philosophy "rigid," it's
no surprise MacKenzie considers Bork the enemy, same as Senator
Ted Kennedy in the hearing that defamed Bork.
Not shocking that a polished editorialist with liberal
credentials would twist facts to suit what he'd prefer to be the
truth. But to defend smearing ideological foes -- not,
certainly, a one-way street -- is to live in a parallel universe
where goals justify all means, and facts are hindrances, to be
trumped by ideology, Oliver Stone-like.
MacKenzie exhorts his flock "do not unilaterally
disarm." Hang in there, then, to "bork" -- er, cut
down -- President Bush's "hard right" nominees?
MacKenzie does concede the Bork nomination "showed the
outer limits of permissible debate." In truth, it was over
the edge.
To his soulmates MacKenzie writes: "Strike hard, but
fairly." Only the former applied for Bork. We who witnessed
the agonizing assaults on truth in Senate Judiciary hearings,
who've read Bork's book, The Tempting of America,
know what the truth is. Clearly, Bork was slandered and libeled
with impunity.
Metamorphosing Senate Democrats' mugging of Bork into
something it was not is a tall order. MacKenzie is smoothly
adept in his effort, but he'll not be successful. The record,
you see, is unambiguous; it's on tape and in history books. The
American people Know what happened. "To bork" is fixed
now as a distasteful transitive verb in American politics, and a
baseline of all public cynicism.
Liberal columnist E. J. Dionne Jr. got it right.
"Nefarious tactics were used," he said, to "trash
Bork." That truth will stand for the ages, and should be an
object lesson to all parties on how not to do nominations.
See also: Pushing
the ethical envelope by Kirsten Andersen
Larson, a freelance writer in northern Minnesota, is a former
business magazine editor, and not the retired cartoonist.
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