Borked

Robert Bork

     When I mentioned the death of  Robert Bork to several people this week I got mostly blank stares.
     That happens more and more often as I get older.
     The same thing happened when I mentioned the decision this week to disinter the bodies of the murderers from In Cold Blood. "You know, the book? Capote? The movie???"
     If nothing else, Bork added a word to the language, and reveled in it.
To be "borked" became--in some circles--a verb for being mistreated in a confirmation hearing.
     Specifically, Bork was a 1987 nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court. He was rejected in a contentious hearing with distinctly bold partisan lines.
     His body was barely warm today when Jeffrey Toobin wrote a parting shot in The New Yorker, quoting the late Senator Edward Kennedy in a Senate Speech:

“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, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, [and] writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government.”

An Associated Press "Machine"

     Ouch. But then again, Bork lived a very public life and was hardly shy about his own views. Toobin's story and others were criticised by conservatives today because they mentioned a certain incident at the top of their stories.
     It was when Bork was willing to do Richard Nixon's bidding and become the assassin of "The Saturday Night Massacre" in 1973.
      I was a young reporter in New Jersey at the time, and remember being alone in the newsroom that night as the AP machine bells rang, indicating the historic events that had occurred.
     "You know...Watergate? The White House tapes? Dustin Hoffman?"
     Sigh.