"The truth is, I have never sat at my desk and thought, 'Today, I shall pen a mighty portrait of coitus!'"

"No, these imaginative encounters seem to creep up on me in the first draft, sort of like when two people fall in love, or lust. One minute you're chatting away about the legacy of Robert Bork and the next you're trying to meld your bodies into one ecstatic pulsating organism. When it's happening on the page, though, things get tricky. We might have the tendency to quickly cover up from the embarrassment of seeing our characters in the buff or else take on the role of salacious puppeteer. The prose can suffer from these reactions, as well as from overly clinical description, or, in some notorious cases, overcooked metaphor. Being caught with your aesthetic pants down can be a writer's worst fear."

From "The Smitten Word: The awkward art of writing about sex," by Sam Lipsyte.

Salacious puppeteer... what a phrase! I had to Google to see if anyone had ever put those 2 words together and....



One minute you're chatting away about the legacy of Robert Bork...

If Sonia Sotomayor's autobiography has nothing at all about law or even politics...

... why would anyone read it?

The book, which covers her life prior to becoming a judge, barely says a word about the Constitution and even less about ideology. Yet one doesn't get the sense that politics were scrubbed from the text; it is rather that the topic isn't of much interest to the author.

That's what a good scrubbing job would do. So there's no bad scrubbing job leaving interesting residue.

One wishes she had shared her intellectual interests with us or discussed the books that captured her fancy or influenced her thinking, since she remarks more than once in "My Beloved World" that the library was a refuge for her as a schoolgirl and later at Princeton. Disclosing the names of books that influenced a childhood wouldn't compromise pending or future cases.

Welcome to the post-Bork world — a "beloved" world? — where judges are dutiful, neutral case processors. The very quality that makes a judge the kind of judge we've come to require — post-Bork — will embody a form of expression antithetical to a good memoir.

"But what 'borking' really amounted to was holding the nominee’s vigorously expressed views up to the light for public inspection."

Says Linda Greenhouse:

In five days of testimony, then-Judge Bork – a former professor of mine whom I liked and respected – had every opportunity to make his case. His ideas were fully aired and considered. By a vote of 58 to 42, the senators, having heard from their constituents, concluded that his constricted constitutional vision, locked into the supposed “original intention” of the framers, was not what the country needed or wanted....

... Robert Bork couldn’t accept the legitimacy of his defeat.... Judge Bork was hardly unique in his sense of entitlement, but it ran so deep that it prevented him from understanding the obvious dynamic of what happened. Because he had been nominated to fill the “swing seat” vacated by Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., a moderate conservative whose retirement left nearly every issue of constitutional moment hanging in the balance, his nomination became a public referendum on whether the court should move decisively to the right or stay basically the same. The status quo won out.

"Reagan's Justice" — an ominous New York Review of Books article about Robert Bork.

I remembered the title of the scary piece (by Ronald Dworkin), which was published in 1984, and I remembered the uber-creepy David Levine caricature that accompanied it:



After Bork got borked, Dworkin got another piece in the NYRB — "What does Bork’s defeat mean? Did the American public reject Bork’s announced philosophy of original intention? If so, what alternative constitutional philosophy, if any, did the public endorse?" — and David Levine drew him again. Look how cute:



Now that he's not a threat, he's a lovable Santa Claus. That's art, baby!

AND: From high(ish) art to low, here's an old Letterman Top 10 list: "Top 10 Names for Robert Bork's Beard":

10. The Chin Slinky
 9. The Amish Outlaw
 8. The See-Through
 7. My Very First Beard - from Kenner!
 6. The Lunatic Fringe
 5. Senor Itchy
 4. The Radioactive Goat
 3. Salute to C. Everett Koop
 2. Gopher Butt
 1. The Babe Magnet

"Bork, he was the biggest bleeding-heart liberal of us all."

An old University of Chicago Law School anecdote.

And here's a letter Robert Bork wrote to the Wall Street Journal in 2005:

Eric Felten’s essay on the dry martini is itself near-perfect (“Don’t Forget the Vermouth,” Leisure & Arts, Pursuits, Dec. 10). His allusion to constitutional jurisprudence is faulty, however, since neither in law nor martinis can we know the subjective “original intent” of the Founding Fathers. As to martinis, the intent may have been to ease man’s passage through this vale of tears or, less admirably, to employ the tactic of “candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.”

What counts in mixology is the “original understanding” of the martini’s essence by those who first consumed it. The essence remains unaltered but allows proportions to evolve as circumstances change. Mr. Felten’s “near-perfect martini” is the same in principle as the “original-understanding martini” and therefore its legitimate descendant. Such latter-day travesties as the chocolate martini and the raspberry martini, on the other hand, are the work of activist bartenders.

Mr. Felten lapses into heresy only once. He prefers the olive to the lemon peel because the former is a “snack.” Dropping a snack into a classic drink is like garnishing filet mignon with ketchup. The correct response when offered an olive is, “When I want a salad, I’ll ask for it.”

Robert Bork has died.

He was 85.

From the above-linked NYT obituary:

Judge Bork, a bear of a man with a scraggly red beard and untamed frizz on a balding pate who liked to eat, drink and smoke for much of his adult life, handled himself poorly in front of the [Senate Judiciary] committee and failed to give doubters confidence. As Tom Shales, the television critic for The Washington Post, wrote of his testimony: “He looked, and talked, like a man who would throw the book at you — maybe like a man who would throw the book at the whole country.”

See that's what I was just talking about: Liberals used to express abhorrence of law-and-order types.

The NYT obit refers to "the notion that the nominee was somehow unfeeling as a judge." Somehow... a notion... Where, oh, where could it come from?!

This [notion] was amplified when, asked by a sympathetic senator, Alan Simpson, Republican of Wyoming, why he wanted to serve on the Supreme Court, Judge Bork replied that it would be “an intellectual feast.”

And that was it, the worst answer ever given to any question in the history of the United States. Intellectual feast! The feast turned out to be a feeding frenzy for the liberal media. Why, they're still picking kinky reddish beard hairs out of their back molars! Burrrrp! Tasty! What a time! And no Supreme Court nominee has said one interesting thing since. Every single one has promised to be a good little judge who would never ever do anything but serve humbly and modestly deciding the cases according to the law.

You think it was interesting that John Roberts said he saw himself as an umpire, calling balls and strikes? That proves my point! I know, Clarence Thomas, "high-tech lynching," but that wasn't about doing the judicial work, so I'm excluding that from the point, which is that they all learned what not to do from Bork. Presidents learned to avoid even picking someone Borkish, so no one was allowed to look weird, speak quirkly, seem like an intellectual with ideas of his own, it would just be bland blandness served atop a steaming pile of blandness. That is: Not tasty! As a live-blogger of nomination hearings, I want to know: Where's my intellectual feast?

ADDED: When C-SPAN put its entire archive up on-line, the first thing I looked up to relive was the Bork hearings:

Arlen Specter has died.

He was 82.

ADDED: He played an important role in Supreme Court nominations:

Arriving on Capitol Hill in 1981, he became a dominant force during the Judiciary Committee’s rancorous Supreme Court nomination battles. More than anyone else, he helped defeat conservative nominee Robert Bork in 1987, and his aggressive questioning of law professor Anita Hill four years later — he accused her of “flat-out perjury” — helped secure Clarence Thomas’s confirmation....

“He was a Rockefeller Republican, a liberal Republican, and was willing to take on Presidents Reagan and Bush, and became a true leader in the bipartisan efforts that strengthened all the civil rights laws and defeated Bork,” said Ralph G. Neas, a longtime civil rights and health-care advocate.

“Then you had a line of demarcation,” Neas said, beginning with Thomas’s Supreme Court nomination and continuing with the Republican majorities in the House and the Senate after the 1994 midterm elections. “Arlen Specter became an especially cautious politician,” Neas said....

After Sen. Specter warned President George W. Bush not to nominate judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade — the 1973 Supreme Court case that essentially legalized abortion rights — conservative Republicans protested his appointment to the Judiciary Committee. Sen. Specter later said he would not use a “litmus test” to deny confirmation to abortion opponents.

He presided over the confirmations of Supreme Court Justices John G. Roberts Jr. and Samuel A. Alito Jr. and was a key force behind passage of some of the Bush administration’s controversial anti-terrorism laws, including the Patriot Act. But as controversy erupted over the government’s handling of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Sen. Specter became a leading proponent of habeas corpus rights for unlawful combatants.

I was just watching old clips from the Bork and the Thomas nomination hearings — because, after the VP debate, I wanted to review Joe Biden's performance.

Clarence Thomas rejects the idea of a judge having a methodology of constitutional interpretation.

Or so it seems. He said:

“You’re supposed to say there’s some angle, some methodology you’re pushing... There’s originalism. There’s textualism. All these useless peripheral debates other than just doing our jobs as best we can.”

Just doing my job as best as I can. That's the modest-selfless-judge methodology... the methodology that dares not call itself a methodology... the methodology embraced by every Supreme Court nominee when he/she comes before the Senate Judiciary Committee ... at least ever since that one guy got borked.

Thomas was interviewed by lawprof Akhil Reed Amar — who has a new book out, "America's Unwritten Constitution: The Precedents and Principles We Live By." I bought that and I recommend it. I got the Kindle version, which allows me to tell you that it contains only 2 mentions of Justice Thomas by name. There's an endnote at 551 about the "contrasting visions" of Brown v. Board of Education "on pervasive display" in the 2007 school integration case Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, referring to Thomas's "politically conservative reading." And there's a reference, on the same page, to Thomas's questioning whether the Establishment Clause ought to have been seen as applicable to the states through the 14th Amendment (even though he found the 2d Amendment incorporated in the 14th Amendment).

What would the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearing have been like if law professors were blogging back then?

And what about the Bork hearings? And Watergate?! (I assert that Nixon would not have resigned if blogging had been around.)

Bork Kagan...

... says Bork.

The Nation: "Elena Kagan should be borked."

In the special Kagan meaning of "bork":

In what is by now an oft-quoted snippet from one of her law review articles, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan castigated the confirmation hearings of Justices Souter, Kennedy, Ginsburg and Breyer as a "vapid and hollow charade."...

What is less remarked upon is that in her article Kagan proposed a model for a more vigorous and candid confirmation hearing—that of Judge Robert Bork. The process worked in that instance, she argued, not because of the particular result but because the hearings "presented to the public a serious discussion of the meaning of the Constitution, the role of the Court, and the views of the nominee; that discussion at once educated the public and allowed it to determine whether the nominee would move the Court in the proper direction." In both popular and right-wing parlance, "borking" now means to vilify and defame a nominee in order to block his appointment, but Kagan's description is in fact a far more accurate account of what happened—senators rigorously probed and considered Bork's legal opinions and voted accordingly. So it is with this understanding that we propose, in the spirit of democratic deliberation of which she so eloquently wrote, that Elena Kagan should be borked.

But this kind of borking is impossible unless the nominee wants it. It doesn't matter what questions the Senators come up with or how pushy and repetitive they are about asking them, the "vapid and hollow charade" can be kept up by the nominee until the clock runs out. The only reason the Bork hearings proceeded the way they did was because Bork chose to engage in legal debate with the Senators. He obviously believed in his ability to explain his ideas in a superior fashion, but he wasn't quite as smart as he needed to be about how it all looked to the people watching it on television, and he gave his enemies the ammunition they needed to bring him down.

Since Bork, all the nominees have adopted the same self-protective stance that Kagan criticized in her article. What would motivate Kagan to do anything other than that? I have 3 thoughts.

1. Kagan wrote a law review article criticizing the vapid self-protective approach to the hearings. She has a little incentive to avoid hypocrisy. A little.

2. She might really care about the criticism she once penned and want to set a new example of how a nominee can be forthright and expressive without losing, like Bork.

3. Unlike the nominees who adopted the self-protective strategy to deprive the President's opponents of the ammunition to shoot them down, Kagan could be pushed by Democratic Senators. That's what The Nation wants to see. It will be interesting if Democrats try to extract assurances of liberalism from Kagan, but why would Kagan want to give them that. Whatever might work for her with them will work against her with others — and with the American people who are consuming tidbits on TV and on line. I, for one, will review every word of the transcripts looking for interesting things to highlight. It's risky to give out any good material, but I hope she does. I don't think she will.

Bottom line: Expect another vapid and hollow charade.

With the entire C-SPAN archive up on-line, what was the first thing I wanted to re-live?

This:

ADDED: Check out the memorable moments page, which includes:

Al Gore concession in 2000 election Bill Clinton 1987 press conference where he says he will not be a candidate in 1988 Barack Obama 2004 convention speech George W. Bush announcing the capture of Saddam Hussein Ronald Reagan and Gorbachev summit in late 1987. Clarence Thomas testifying that he did not watch Anita Hill testifying. Bill Clinton grand jury testimony Dan Quayle and Murphy Brown Medal of Freedom Award to Margaret Thatcher George H.W. Bush inviting Dana Carvey to the White House where he impersonates Bush 1992

What Ted Kennedy said about Robert Bork.

Live-blogging the VP debate.

7:31, Central Time: I'm here, eating strozzapreti with burned tomato sauce, counting the last few minutes before the grand showdown.

7:39: Strozzapreti? "Priest choker"!

7:55: Are you going to watch on CNN, with the uncommitted viewers' reaction lines undulating at the bottom of the screen? Wow. That's crazy! I can't tolerate that distraction, and the "persuadable" voters they've assembled are... not people I feel like monitoring on a real-time basis.

7:58: What are you looking for, mainly? Honestly, I'm mainly looking to see if Sarah Palin can sound reasonably competent.

8:02: The 2 candidates stride out, both dressed in black. "Hey, can I call you Joe?" we hear Sarah say. Palin looks tiny behind her lectern. She's behind her lectern there, and here's where I am, chez Althouse:



8:06: Palin's flag pin is way bigger than Biden's. Biden has a brown dot on his forehead. Palin refers to "the fundamental" of our economy. She's speaking too quickly, sounding nervous.

8:09: Whose fault is the sub-prime mortgage meltdown? Palin says the moneylenders have taken advantage of people, and she mentions "hockey moms" a second time. Biden blames Republican deregulation. Biden's forehead wrinkles only way over on the side, while the whole center is smooth and flat. What do you think? Botox?

8:13: Palin says she might not answer the questions the way the monitor wants, but she's going to talk straight to the American people. She reveals her overarching strategy. And I note that she's speaking clearly and confidently. There is no stumbling or fear, as far as I can see.

8:19: Joe Biden is going to "eliminate those wasteful spending."

8:27: I'll bet a lot of people are tuning out about now, satisfied that Palin is competent and smart, but pretty bored.

8:29: I'm reading Andrew Sullivan: "Biden is just dreadful. He speaks in Washingtonese. She just issues the soundbites and wrinkles her eyes and tells stories. And that works. The speed and chirpiness she delivers overwhelms one's ability to even quite absorb what she's saying. And it has put Biden off-stride. It's Biden who seems over-crammed." It seems to me that both of them are spewing policy (and it's getting tiresome). "Chirpiness"... I don't know, Andrew... that reads as sexist to me. Why is she overwhelming your ability to absorb what she's saying? Is she working some voodoo on you... and on Biden?

8:34: Palin said "Senator O'Biden."

8:35: Palin razzes Biden on clean coal. Is he for it or not? Biden says he's for it, and his rope-line comment was about his support for exporting clean coal technology to China. That doesn't seem to fit the text of his remark (which he claims was "taken out of context").

8:37: Biden passionately expresses support for equal treatment for same-sex couples, and Palin opposes same-sex marriage, but says that in all other ways she's completely tolerant of adults forming their own relationships. Biden then is given the opportunity to disavow gay marriage, which he eagerly does. Okaaaay.

8:40: Palin is praising the surge and insisting on victory in Iraq. "It would be a travesty if we quit now." Biden complains that she didn't state a plan. On the split screen, when Biden is speaking, Palin looks like she's brimming with ideas she's just waiting to express. When she gets her turn, she says Biden's plan is a "white flag of surrender." She reminds Biden of how much he supported McCain and how he said Obama was not ready to be President.

8:49: Biden is mugging and scratching his neck in an exaggerated way. I think he was trying to signal his objection to the things Palin was saying about Obama's willingness to sit down with Ahmadinejad.

8:51: Biden's heating up! Is he losing his temper?

8:55: At Drudge:



8:57: Well, let me ask:

Who's winning?
	Palin.
	Biden.
	It's not about winning and losing in the debate.
	Shut up! It's not over.
pollcode.com free polls

9:03: Palin enthuses over her Washington outsider status as she claims to hear Biden saying, essentially, I was for it before I was against it.

9:09: "Palin: 'Oh, man, it's so obvious that I'm a Washington outsider and just not used to the way you guys operate!' And then, Biden pats down his brow. On sheer theatrics, Palin definitely won that moment." LOL. That's Jac (my son), who's also live-blogging.

9:11: "There you go again. Say it ain't so, Joe." Palin was waiting to say that. Biden's error? Linking McCain to Bush. Palin seems supercharged. The question is education, and she's praising teachers and winking at her dad in the audience.

9:13: Palin gets a big laugh saying that she and Biden made "lame jokes" back in the beginning of the debate when they avoided answering the question what they wanted to do as VP. Clearly, she's really relaxed. The end is in sight, and she knows she's done well. She's stood her ground next to Biden. She hasn't stumbled, and he's seemed a bit boring.

9:25: Asked what he's changed his opinion about, Biden says he came to realize that judicial ideology matters. (Which is why he opposed Bork.) Palin says she's never had to compromise.

9:29: We've reached the prepared closing statements. So Palin has survived... more than survived. She won, I think most people will say. Now, she's able to say she likes to do these unscripted things. She quotes Ronald Reagan (again) and mentions "freedom" (again and again).

9:31: Biden gives his closing statement. He seems like a nice man. Did he ever attack her?

9:34: Huge crowd of family on the stage.

9:36: The final poll:

It's over now, so who won?
	Biden
	Palin
	Neither
pollcode.com free polls

POST-DEBATE: Let me highlight some comments. Stupe said...

Althouse can't just eat normal foods, she needs trendy.

She doesn't go to chain restaurants, and her cuisine needs to reflect her offbeat, edgy, urbane, t[r]endy life.

Is burning the sauce now a trend? Or do I create the trend? If so, I can't help but be trendy. Is there a strozzapreti trend? I just picked the pasta that had a shape that appealed to me. So just be yourself, Stupe, and believe it's all very trendy, and that might make you happy. Don't think about me. Or, hell, think about me until it drives you crazy.

Ruth Anne Adams said...

The hair in [Sarah Palin's] eye is bothering my husband.

Ha ha. That was bugging me too. I was distracted thinking about whether she was distracted thinking about whether it would be more distracting to disentangle her bangs from her (false?) eyelashes than to allow the bangs-eye combo to continue as a single unit.

Lisa said...

So far, she sounds smart, sane and Republican.

The left will hate her. The right will agree with her.

(Lisa said baby on a night like this...)

vbspurs said...

Does Palin have ice water in her bloodstream or is it me?

She's almost too un-nervous. It's making me nervous!

LoafingOaf said...

What a twitchy, nervous wreck Palin is!

Palladian said...

Sarah Palin's pussy is gnawing at LoafingOaf's brain again.

vbspurs said...

OOOOOOH. A little lesbian tension between Palin and Ifill just now. HAWT.

(It's late-night Althouse.)

Michael_H said...

I don't want to channel surf--anyone know the Brewers/Phillies score?

Ruth Anne Adams said...

Gwen's questions SUCK! Too complex. Easily ignored.

Trooper York said...

Phillies won 5 to 2.

Go 2 up on the series.

Michael_H said...

Ifill keeps cutting Palin off, then letting Joey Plugs run as long as he wants.

Really?

vbspurs said...

The 'Mos are getting their questions now. Surprising nod to Palin by Ifill.

I smell a skunk. Or a fish taco.

!!!

ex-prosecutor said...

If these were two lawyers, arguing, to a jury, she'd be killing him.

palladian said...

God, the only thing more boring than a Vice Presidential debate is baseball. I'd rather listen to Joseph Biden filibuster than listen to people talk about baseball. I'd rather watch "An Inconvenient Truth" 100 times than listen to people talk about baseball. SHUT UP ABOUT BASEBALL.

vbspurs said...

Nice! "Not sane or stable" about Dinner Jacket.

THE CASTRO BROTHERS. She just won Florida, que rico!!!

lem said...

Gwen went off the script to help Joe!

michael_h said...

Love the way Palin smiles as she's making notes while Joey Plugs speaks.

chip ahoy said...

No fair! They televise the back of Biden's head to show all the work was done in the front.

lawgiver said...

Cuda is landing some major body shots now. Joe's eyes are glazed, he's going downnnnnn!

john stodder said...

Palin is just so damn normal.

On TV it looks weird to be normal.

goesh said...

500+ comments - holy wow

Palin's faster pace makes her come across as very competent/intelligent, a bit smarter than Biden - she sure the heck exudes confidence - what happened to the dummy from up north???? gone, gone, gone

palladian said...

I love the milling around parts of C-SPAN broadcasts. So much better than listening to talking heads blabber.

ricpic said...

Sarah's happy.

Lefty freaks can't stand happy.

But normal human beings love happy and love Sarah.

joan said...

Karl Rove just ticked off 10 major gaffes by Joe Biden. It was hysterical.

schorsch said...

Regardless of who won, Biden's tactic failed. He was there to debate Bush and McCain, and to ignore Palin as if she wasn't worthy of his attention. She engaged him, specifically, and was therefore the only person in the debate that was actually occurring.

MORE FROM THE COMMENTS: patca said...

I am soooo relieved--and very happy. She was fabulous.

I feel like smoking a cigarette.

Tony Mauro wants to remind people that Joe Biden has treated a few Supreme Court nominees a little shabbily.

He writes:

[Clarence Thomas] has less than fond memories of his treatment by Biden, who chaired his stormy 1991 hearing. In his 2007 memoir "My Grandfather's Son," Thomas recalls that Biden initially kept Anita Hill's allegations of sexual harassment against Thomas private. Before the firestorm began, Biden called him at home and said, "Judge, I know you don't believe me," but if the allegations come up, "I will be your biggest defender." Wrote Thomas, "He was right about one thing. I didn't believe him."

A bit more at the link. But it would be very easy to comb the old Senate Judiciary Committee hearings for loose talk that poured out of Joe Biden's mouth while an esteemed judge had to sit there and put up with it. I may go back and read the transcripts from the Reagan-Bush I era, but as for the the Roberts and Alito material, I've pre-blogged it, so let's see what I have.

There's this description, from Elisabeth Bumiller, of Biden at Day 2 of the Alito hearings:

"I understand, Judge, I am the only one standing between you and lunch, so I'll try to make this painless," he began, with some promise.

Mr. Biden then dived into a soliloquy on Judge Alito's failure to recuse himself from cases involving the Vanguard mutual fund company, which managed the judge's investments. After 2 minutes 50 seconds - short for the senator - Mr. Biden did appear to veer toward a question, but abandoned it to cite Judge Alito's membership in a conservative Princeton alumni group. Mr. Biden discoursed on that for a moment, then interrupted himself with an aside about his son who "ended up going to that other university, the University of Pennsylvania."

Judge Alito, who had been sitting without expression through Mr. Biden's musings, interrupted the senator midword, got out three sentences, then settled in for nearly 26 minutes more of Mr. Biden, with the senator doing most of the talking. With less than a minute to spare, Mr. Biden concluded, thanked Judge Alito for "being responsive," then said to Mr. Specter that "I want to note that for maybe the first time in history, Biden is 40 seconds under his time."

To which I said:

How appalling! And complimenting himself, in the third person, in the end, as if he's being charmingly self-deprecating?

There's this from Day 3 of the Roberts hearings:

Joe Biden is hamming it up big time, dramatizing the frustration of not getting Roberts to say how he'll decide specific cases. We've been through this so many times, but Biden seems to think that, if he just emotes more than the others, the American public will finally see the outrage of a judge not committing his vote before hearing the case. Yet every time Roberts explains why he won't answer, he sounds so eloquent and even inspiring about the role of the judge, that it ends up making the Senator look childish.

None of this Roberts-Alito material is anywhere near as awful as what happened to Thomas (and Robert Bork). Biden was just talking too much, in love with the sound of his own voice, and frankly, that let the nominees off the hook.

Charlton Heston, "remembered chiefly for his monumental, jut-jawed portrayals of Moses, Ben-Hur and Michelangelo."

Goodbye to one of the all-time great movie stars, Charlton Heston, who has died at the age of 83.

When I read "remembered chiefly for his monumental, jut-jawed portrayals of Moses, Ben-Hur and Michelangelo," I wondered, by whom? I'm pretty old but I've never seen those movies. I was alive when they came out, but too young to go to movies like that, and they weren't the kind of movies I was ever interested in over the decades I've spent catching up on old movies. So I don't believe Charlton Heston is remembered chiefly for his monumental, jut-jawed portrayals of Moses, Ben-Hur and Michelangelo. I think most people younger than 60 remember him chiefly for "Planet of the Apes."

Ask the man on the street to imitate Charlton Heston and I bet he'd say "Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!"



Or maybe:



Ah, we loved Science Fiction Charlton Heston!

It was Charlton Heston that turned me against Michael Moore. Remember this from "Bowling for Columbine" — taking advantage of the old man's deteriorating mind?



Horrible. Moore must have felt so self-righteous about his anti-gun agenda that he couldn't see why it was indecent to use that footage. [ADDED: Actually, I don't think that clip is "horrible" or "indecent." When I posted this, I was remembering it and the discussion around it at the time. After watching it just now, I think, given Heston's NRA activities, it was appropriate to interview him and push him, and Moore addressed him with an appropriate level of respect.][AND: I think the unfairness to Moore that I'm remember occurs outside of this clip, when Moore refuses to leave politely after Heston ends the interview.]

The obituary outlines Heston's political career. He started out as a Democrat, and though he, like Ronald Reagan, served as president of the Screen Actors Guild, he never wanted to run for office.

He became a Republican after Democrats in the Senate blocked the confirmation of Judge Robert Bork, a conservative, to the Supreme Court in 1987. Mr. Heston had supported the nomination and was critical of the Reagan White House for misreading the depth of the liberal opposition....

In December of that year, as the keynote speaker at the 20th anniversary gala of the Free Congress Foundation, Mr. Heston described “a cultural war” raging across America, “storming our values, assaulting our freedoms, killing our self-confidence in who we are and what we believe.”

The next year, at 73, he was elected president of the N.R.A. In his speech at the association’s convention before his election, he trained his oratorical artillery on President Bill Clinton’s White House: “Mr. Clinton, sir, America didn’t trust you with our health care system. America didn’t trust you with gays in the military. America doesn’t trust you with our 21-year-old daughters, and we sure, Lord, don’t trust you with our guns.”

Among the Federalists.

"We thought we had planted a wildflower in the weeds of academic liberalism. Instead it was an oak, " said Antonin Scalia last night at the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Federalist Society.

President Bush spoke too:

"Senate confirmation is part of the Constitution's checks and balances. But it was never intended to be a license to ruin the good name that a nominee has worked a lifetime to build," Bush said.

He also said many qualified lawyers had "politely declined" judicial nominations "because of the ugliness, uncertainty and delay that now characterizes the confirmation process."

Rudolph W. Giuliani spoke to the group today.

He professed his affinity for judges who see the Constitution for "what it is, not what they want it to be.'' He denounced the Senate confirmation process that denied a Supreme Court seat to former Judge Robert Bork and became an "attempted character assassination'' of Justice Clarence Thomas. He promised to nominate justices such as Thomas--and Antonin Scalia, John G. Roberts Jr and Samuel A. Alito Jr....

Giuliani said Hillary Rodham Clinton should have been invited, since she is "one of the newest federalists." He was referring to what he said was her position that driver's licenses for illegal immigrants was something to be decided by each state.

"This is the only time in her career she's ever decided anything should be decided on a state by state basis," he said, to laughter from the crowd. "And you know something? She picked absolutely the wrong one.''...

The former mayor said the country plays a "divinely inspired role'' motivated by "ideas and idealism.''

"It was this nation that saved the world from the two great tyrannies of the 20th Century--Nazism and communism," Giuliani said. "It's this country that is going to save civilzation [sic] from Islamic terrorism.''

"Divinely inspired role" — good or bad phrase?

"Islamic terrorism" — good or bad phrase?

"The only time in her career she's ever decided anything should be decided on a state by state basis" — really?

ADDED: Here's the full text of the Giuliani speech. Let's see "divinely inspired role" in context:

The theme of this conference is “Shining City Upon a Hill: American Exceptionalism.” Of course the shining city upon a hill was the great reference that Ronald Reagan used bringing up the words of John Winthrop, but the American exceptionalism is also a very, very important part of that theme. There are some people I think nowadays that doubt that America has a special, even a divinely inspired role in the world. Now I don’t understand how you can look at history and not see the wisdom of that and the reality of it.

Most countries on earth developed out of a single ethnicity, a single religion, some common characteristic that bound people together before they were even a nation. America is very, very different. We’re not a single ethnicity, we’re all ethnicities. We’re not a single race, we’re all races. We’re not a single religion. We were established so that we wouldn’t be a single religion. So we’re very different in our origins than just about any other country on earth. We’re united because of ideas and ideals. That’s what holds us together. That’s the thing that makes America America, makes Americans Americans—shared ideas....

American exceptionalism isn’t a debate, it’s not something we should be arrogant about where we say, “Oh, we’re very, very special.” We’re just very, very fortunate and when we don’t recognize that, I don’t think we do justice to our background and to what’s expected of us.

... America established this constitutional democratic government in the form of a republic and it was the nation that from the very beginning saw that tyranny and oppression is something that was illegitimate and had to be dealt with. It was this nation that saved the world from the two great tyrannies of the 20th century, Nazism and Communism. It’s this country that’s going to save a civilization from Islamic terrorism.

"Hnh, Biden stomps some dirt on Robert Bork's grave."

"He wants SCOTUS judges who've lived life, not who 'want an intellectual feast.'"

Writes Dave Wiegel, live-blogging the debate last night at 9:56.

Biden was alluding to what turned out to be the worst answer Robert Bork gave at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee (which Joe Biden chaired at the time, 20 years ago):

ALAN K. SIMPSON, Republican of Wyoming: And now I have one final question. Why do you want to be an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court?

BORK: Senator, I guess the answer to that is that I have spent my life in the intellectual pursuits in the law. And since I've been a judge, I particularly like the courtroom. I like the courtroom as an advocate and I like the courtroom as a judge. And I enjoy the give-and-take and the intellectual effort involved. It is just a life and that's of course the Court that has the most interesting cases and issues and I think it would be an intellectual feast just to be there and to read the briefs and discuss things with counsel and discuss things with my colleagues. That's the first answer.

The second answer is, I would like to leave a reputation as a judge who understood constitutional governance and contributed his bit to maintaining it in the ways I have described before this committee. Our constitutional structure is the most important thing this nation has and I would like to help maintain it and to be remembered for that.

It was 20 years ago, that Biden led the fight that defeated Robert Bork. I note that, last night, Biden railed against law professors:

I have taken on those justices who, in fact, show no balance — they are ideologues. We have enough ideologues. We have enough professors on the bench. I want someone who ran for dog catcher. I want someone — literally, not a joke. When Hillary's husband asked me for his advice when he was appointing people, I wanted to go to people and so did he — we couldn't. Four people turned it down. We wanted to get someone who, in fact, knew what it was to live life.

So... we got stuck with Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

Who are the 4 people who turned it down? According to Jeffrey Toobin's "The Nine," Mario Cuomo, George Mitchell, Richard Riley, Bruce Babbitt all said no, and Clinton finally — on the suggestion of Attorney General Janet Reno — turned to Ginsburg.

Someone ought to ask Joe Biden if he meant to say that Ginsburg and Breyer don't know knew what it is to live life. And why is he so sure that politicians like Mario Cuomo, George Mitchell, Richard Riley, Bruce Babbitt do? Because he's one?

Now, it may be a perfectly good idea to put a great lawyer with political experience on the Supreme Court, but Biden goes beyond that and disrespects two fine Supreme Court justices — Ginsburg and Breyer.

"I don't like to call the police or call his boss. . . . I'm a libertarian. I'm not into that."

Said Tucker Carlson about the video store clerk who had blogged about Carlson's previous visit to the store (and called Carlson's wife "ridiculously wasped-out"). (Via Memeorandum.)

The clerk -- Charles Williamson -- had failed to observe the video store clerk - video store client privilege, and he paid the price for it. He got fired. How much sympathy should we have for Williamson? He's 28, old enough to know that if you use access to information that you get on the job in a way that hurts your employer, your employer won't like it and you can get fired. A video store client wants to feel a sense of privacy about the information that he creates by renting videos.

The linked article, in the Washington Post, doesn't take the privacy issue seriously. It's so tempting to mock Carlson and to feel for the little guy -- here's his blog -- and to think that blogs are a special enclave that should be immune from the limits imposed on the rest of the world. But let's focus on the larger issue. Do you want your video rental information disclosed?

Back when Robert Bork was nominated for a seat on the Supreme Court, a Washington newspaper published a list of the videos he had rented. The Bork list had nothing particularly interesting on it, but the disclosure of the list scared people enough that the Congress soon passed the Video Privacy Protection Act, which made anyone engaged in video sales or rental liable for the disclosure of "information which identifies a person as having requested or obtained specific video materials or services from a video tape service provider."

Well, I guess good libertarians should think this law is terrible. And good for Tucker Carlson for not invoking his legal rights -- if any -- on this one. (I don't know how "specific" the information Williamson published was.)

Think of all the fun we've missed over the years not having all this juicy information to chew over. But even if there were no law, video business owners would probably have a policy against disclosure and would fire clerks who published information about clients. Wouldn't you avoid the store where the clerks blogged about what the customers rented?

Anyone who thinks the answers depend on whether or not we hate the particular client really doesn't know how to think straight!

"Nobody really cares what I think."

Did anyone still watch the Alito hearings yesterday? It seemed so over. Surely, we lawprofs ought to be interested in hearing what lawprofs have to say, you might think. But, no, actually, no. We're so used to what we think that we feel we already know what will be said.

Nevertheless, I'm a blogger lawprof, so I will scan the transcript as a service to you, the reader.

[Professor Laurence] TRIBE: I'm not here to endorse the nomination of Judge Alito, as I did with my most recent testimony before this committee on a Supreme Court nomination with Justice Kennedy.

I'm not here to oppose his nomination, as I did several months before that time with Robert Bork. And I'm not here to lecture the committee on its responsibilities or its role. I don't think that's my role.

[Criticisms of Alito omitted.]

SPECTER: Professor Tribe, did you say you were not testifying against Judge Alito?

TRIBE: I am not recommending any action. I'm recommending that everyone -- because I think it's foolish. Nobody really cares what I think.

SPECTER: Aside from your recommendation, are you saying you're not testifying against Judge Alito?

TRIBE: I'm not testifying for or against Judge Alito. I'm explaining why I am very troubled by his views. Obviously, it follows from that that I would be hard pressed to recommend his confirmation.

Everyone's always "troubled" these days. Come on, he's opposed to Alito, but the opposition works best if you can oppose from within the humble law professor character. Does anyone actually buy that?

Well, no one's watching on Day 5 anyway, so what they hell? It's an attractive pose, isn't it? And gems of frankness still pop out, like the one I've extracted for the title to this post.

The Senators rush the professors along and bear down on Tribe in particular for going over the time limit. Later, at the end of the day, Specter and Leahy luxuriate in unclocked minutes babbling to each other, somewhat charmingly:

SPECTER: [L]et me say that it has been a pleasure to work with Senator Leahy and I think our collegiality has been demonstrated in many ways, mostly by all of the pictures taken where we're huddled together so that our voices don't carry too far beyond, and also with a sense of humor.

In the bad old days when I had no hair, the only way that Senator Leahy and I could be told apart was by the color of our ties.

LEAHY: You're still wearing the red tie?

SPECTER: And I'm glad to have some hair....

There's a Latin maxim, "The exception proves the rule."

There might have been four minutes in the hearing when it wasn't dignified, but we worked through that as well.

About the only thing the respective parties have been able to agree to on this whole proceeding is that Senator Leahy and I have functioned collegially and have produced a full and fair and dignified hearing.

Ah, thank God, it's finally over! I waited so long for Supreme Court appointments, and I was so excited about finally getting to some hearings. But, wow, the drudgery of following these things!

Will there be another anytime soon? If so, how about not going on for 5 days? It's just crazy. The nominee and his family are subjected to a physical endurance test, and then -- it's not really that sad -- no one wants to listen to the lawprofs.