The Failed Nomination of Robert Bork [TEASER]

And I think it would be an intellectual feast.

Hey, everyone, this is Leon from Fiasco and Prologue Projects.

On this week's premium episode of 5-4, Peter, Rhiannon, and Michael are talking about Robert Bork.

Bork is best known as a failed Reagan nominee to the Supreme Court.

Democrats were joined by six Republicans in voting against his confirmation in 1987.

The standard Republican line on Bork is that his experience before the Senate is the reason the Supreme Court became politicized, as if the lawmakers who voted against him were motivated by something other than his stated beliefs and his record as a legal thinker.

But as you'll hear, it wasn't really any more complicated than that.

This is 5-4, a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks.

Welcome to 5-4, where we dissect and analyze the Supreme Court cases that have caused our rights to rot and decay like Robert Bork's putrid corpse.

I'm Peter.

I'm here with Michael.

Everybody.

Oh my God, the start to this.

And Rhiannon.

Rhiannon, are you here?

Let's get borked.

Quick editor's note up top: this is a premium episode, and we're giving you premium content.

That's right.

That means Michael has COVID.

Yeah, that's right.

Congrats, lucky listeners.

Making him the second host to record an episode episode of 5-4

with COVID.

That's right.

Ray did it unvaccinated last year, which I think we have to admit is braver.

Yeah.

June 2020, baby.

Yeah.

Seeing as Michael will be coughing all throughout this, I think we should give everyone a heads up.

You guys get to hear the sounds of it.

We would never do this for our non-premium audience, but we know that you, our hardcore fans, they want to hear this, right?

You guys are here to listen to Michael be Sick, and you love it.

Briannan, do you want to say what's going on with you?

I'll just say I'm not 100% sober for this recording.

I'm good leaving it there.

Yeah, I will say when Rhiannon told me the exact way in which she was not sober, I said, oh, shit.

And I'm a normal person, so I'm just drinking, okay?

Now, sorry for that very on-the-nose metaphor, but it was a little bit last-minute.

It works.

Today's episode is about the nomination to the Supreme Court of one Robert Bork.

Every now and then, Republicans are forced to defend the endless shenanigans that they have engaged in with respect to Supreme Court nominations.

Merrick Garland, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, etc.

Yeah.

The more hackish types might try to pretend that there's a real rationale behind it.

But if you ask the more ostensibly serious conservative thinkers, they'll all say the same thing.

It started with Bork.

What they mean is that Democrats started the politicization of the Supreme Court nomination process when they successfully voted down the nomination of Robert Bork in 1987.

Bork was nominated to the Supreme Court by Reagan, and following a contentious hearing in the Senate focused on his fringe right-wing beliefs, his confirmation was rejected 58 to 42, with six Republicans joining the Democrats in voting no.

In Bork, the right learned a couple of lessons.

The first is that Supreme Court nominations are or can be a political battlefield.

The second is that they need to be very careful in how they talk about the law.

Bork spent his career as an outspoken conservative lawyer.

He opposed civil rights legislation and abortion.

He was radically corporatist, and he was called out on all of that during the confirmation.

Since then, conservatives have been careful not to say too much in public, and they've learned how to mask their politics when they talk about the law.

So, come, let us tell you a story about one of the most vile pieces of shit in modern history.

Re?

Want to hit us with some Bork background?

Yeah.

Some Bork ground?

Yes!

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