Follow former Reagan White House political director Jeffrey Lord into the trenches of political rebellion. Federal District Judge D. Brooks Smith was considered by his legal peers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to be a sterling judge with an unmarred reputation. Appointed by President Ronald Reagan to the federal bench, his 14-year tenure had been widely praised by Pennsylvania Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives alike. Then, President George W. Bush nominated him to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Smith’s personal and professional life was turned upside down by Washington insiders during the height of a judicial crisis in both the Third Circuit and the Western District of Pennsylvania. In 1987, Reagan’s nomination of Judge Robert Bork for a vacant seat on the United States Supreme Court was subjected to a ferocious mud-slinging campaign by shadowy special interest groups. Bork was defeated, the ruthless public assaults against him quickly gaining a name: borking. Like a malignant cancer the borking process has now spread through the judicial confirmation process for even the lower federal courts. And author Jeffrey Lord, who as a young White House aide had worked not only on the original Bork nomination but on those of Supreme Court nominees Rehnquist, Scalia, Douglas Ginsburg and Anthony Kennedy, was there when it all began. In an interesting turn of events, years later, now out of politics, Lord found his old college friend Brooks Smith, in 2002, suddenly fighting the same battle as Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas and another Bush nominee, Charles Pickering. The exemplary Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania was being borked, subjected to a sudden hailstorm of smears, half-truths and flagrant lies by the Washington special interest groups. But this time it was different. Armed with his insider knowledge as well as the startling support of a large group of bi-partisan Pittsburgh attorneys, most of them women, Jeffrey Lord organized a counter-campaign to stop the $50 million dollar special interests in their tracks. The renegade group, furious over the Washington culture of political attack that was assaulting their community, banded together with Senators Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum to take on a judicial confirmation process that had gone off the constitutional rails – AND WON! This book is their story. The Borking Rebellion is a disturbing expose of Washington politics gone awry under the pressures of wealthy special interests which have turned the judicial selection process into a binge of extra-constitutional judge shopping to serve their own agendas. Rebellion is told by the central character – Jeffrey Lord – who was there to witness it first hand. With a Supreme Court nomination expected in the near future, and issues of borking, filibustering and the conduct of the Senate Judiciary Committee itself dominating headlines across the country, Rebellion will provide you with an insiders guide on how a borking works – and how to fight it. Lord, a former aide to not only Ronald Reagan but ex-Cabinet secretaries Jack Kemp and Drew Lewis, the late Pennsylvania U.S. Senator John Heinz and former Congressman Bud Shuster, serves as storyteller and participant as he tells the tale of the women attorneys from Pittsburgh who led The Borking Rebellion.
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Editorial Reviews
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"...An entertaining read..." --The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 30, 2005
"A blockbuster..." --Kerby Anderson, host of "Point of View" Syndicated Radio Talk Show, July 2005
"A blockbuster..." --Kerby Anderson, host of "Point of View" Syndicated Radio Talk Show, July 2005
About the Author
Jeffrey Lord, a former Reagan White Political Director during Reagan's second term is the author of Katco's "The Borking Rebellion." Lord was right in the middle of the borking rebellion over the nomination of his long time friend Judge D. Brooks Smith in addition to being present for the original battle over Judge Robert Bork in 1987. Lord has been published in many prominent publications across the country. His last published piece in May appeared on The National Review Online. In the past he has written for the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, the Washington Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Important and instructive story on the sad state of our nomination process for Federal Judges,
By
This review is from: The Borking Rebellion: The Never-Before-Told Story of How a Group of Pennsylvania Women Attorneys took on the Entire U. S. Senate Judiciary Committee--And Won (Paperback)
While a number of fine books are available on the over reach of our judiciary that focus on their outrageous rulings, this most interesting book shows us how our broken process for getting potential federal judges through the nomination process demonstrates the rottenness of our present politics. The title, "The Borking Rebellion" is a play on another Pennsylvania uprising during Washington's Presidency known as "The Whiskey Rebellion". This book tells the story of getting Brooks Smith through the nomination gauntlet to be seated as a Federal Appeals Court judge for western Pennsylvania.
It uses the name of Judge Robert Bork in the title because the verb to Bork is now in some dictionaries. It refers to the process of character assassination that was used by Senator Ted Kennedy, NOW, and others to stall the process, smear with false accusations, rumor, and misrepresentation, and then to try to kill the nomination by keeping it from a vote by the whole Senate, if possible. Judge Brooks Smith was nominated to the appeals court for the western portion of Pennsylvania at a time when there was a critical shortage of seated judges in that district. Immediately, anonymous sourced began posting rumors about him on the web. Public statements were made about his life and career that were false, but picked up by those who felt it in their interests to thwart his being seated. Since Judge Smith was supported strongly by Senator Rick Santorum, certain liberal Senators such as Senator Pat Leahy and Senator Joe Biden participated in the Washington D.C. based campaign to, well, Bork Judge Smith. The machine was moving against Smith quite smoothly in Washington, but was causing an across the political spectrum uproar in Pennsylvania. There were a number of women who were also liberals, Democrats, and lawyers who had argued in front of Judge Smith that were in favor of his being appointed to the seat for which President Bush hand nominated him. They joined the group that became known as the Phalanx that fought against the Borking process and ultimately prevailed. While important work was done by everyone in the Phalanx, it was the liberals, Amy Greer, Maureen Kelly, and Lynette Norton who, along with Senator Arlen Specter, were able to make the charges against Smith untenable. Eventually, even Senator Biden came around and supported Smith. This is an entertaining read. The anecdotes tell the story effectively. I found the story quite disturbing because of what it says about the politicization of our Judiciary. Why is this so? Because our elected representatives have essentially abdicated the hard work of fighting out controversial legislation. They are so focused on re-election that all the hard decisions are fobbed off on blue-ribbon commissions, regulatory agencies, and even the judiciary. Our representatives know their re-election depends more on how many truckloads of money they can bring back to the district or state than on their standing up for a difficult political position. Unfortunately, the judiciary is set up in a way that political fighting is very difficult against once you are nominated and our system is poorly designed to fight off the work of judges who legislate from the bench. Where this will end, I have no idea. However, you can become better informed by reading this most instructive story.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Bork Wasn't the First; Thurgood Marshall and Fortas were,
By Jack London "Buck" (Real World USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Borking Rebellion: The Never-Before-Told Story of How a Group of Pennsylvania Women Attorneys took on the Entire U. S. Senate Judiciary Committee--And Won (Paperback)
The author conveniently rewrites history by insinuating that the Bork was the first Supreme Court nominee to face below the pale scrutiny in the modern era. We cannot forget the hero of the right wingers, Strom Thurmond, who shamefully attempted to take down Thurgood Marshall. Thurmond tormented Marshall with sixty arcane legal questions and grilled him on three Reoncstruction era Amendments. As head of the Judiciary Committee, Thurmond also blocked the nomination of Abe Fortas to succeed Earl Warren.
Those Republicans who attempt to argue that the Bork nomination began the era of bad feelings and nasty tactics have short memories and are shameless false fact revisionists.
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