Customer Reviews

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

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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.

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.