Former attorney general Ed Meese has described him as "One of our nation's greatest legal minds." Born in 1927, Bork enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps at 17 to fight in World War II. Following his graduation from the University of Chicago, where he obtained both his undergraduate and law degrees, Bork practiced law with the prestigious firm Kirkland & Ellis for eight years before joining the faculty of Yale Law School in 1962.
As Bork framed the issue: "Either the Constitution and statutes are law, which means that their principles are known and control judges, or they are malleable texts that judges may rewrite to see that particular groups or political causes win." While Bork was not the only conservative in legal academia, he was certainly the most influential-and articulate-advocate for originalism.
Washington insiders failed to account for three things: the Left's special antipathy for Bork, due to the intellectual threat that he posed to the living Constitution; the demagogic force of Senator Ted Kennedy's preemptive attack on Bork; and the unprecedented media campaign waged against his nomination.
Biden delayed Bork's confirmation hearings-typically a formality-an extraordinary two and a half months to allow the anti-Bork forces to mobilize, and then orchestrated an inquisition by Bork's foes to vilify the nominee.
Bork's controversial proposal, along with his unremitting criticism of popular culture and suggestion that limited censorship might be necessary to promote civic virtue, led some critics-including some on the right-to pan Slouching Towards Gomorrah as a jeremiad. Libertarians, in particular, took offense at Bork's attack on "Radical personal autonomy," condemnation of homosexuality as immoral, and equation of libertarians to "Libertines."
Slouching Towards Gomorrah would be Bork's last major book of original material.
https://www.city-journal.org/html/robert-bork-16039.html
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