Word: bork
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Thus, to a great many people around the country, the Bork confirmation struggle is nothing less than a fight for the soul of American society. Evangelists like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson speak of a Bork appointment as a kind of salvation for a morally misguided Supreme Court. Exulted Human Events, a right-wing journal: "The President . . . could advance his entire social agenda -- from tougher criminal penalties, to curbing abortion-on- demand, to sustaining religious values in the schools, etc. -- far beyond his term in office...
...liberal call to arms was proclaimed by Senator Ted Kennedy just hours after the nomination was announced. Said he: "Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists would be censored at the whim of Government...
...hearings will be only the first phase of the proceedings. Biden says the Judiciary Committee will make its determination -- favorable, unfavorable, no recommendation -- but will vote the matter out to the full Senate for consideration next month, even if a majority of the committee ends up opposing Bork. If, however, Bork is given an unfavorable report, Biden says, "I would hope the President would withdraw the nomination and send up another name. If Bork cannot convince the committee, then he probably would lose a vote on the floor as well." Given the stakes involved, Reagan is sure to ignore such...
Those fence sitters have been the targets of one of the most aggressive congressional lobbying drives in recent memory. "I've never seen this intensity for a campaign before," says Ralph Neas, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the umbrella organization coordinating the anti-Bork juggernaut. "People are looking at this as all our previous battles wrapped into one." Says Tom Korologos, a noted Republican lobbyist retained by the White House to fight for Bork: "Rarely have I seen both left and right so vehement in their zeal...
...palpable sense of vengeance. Some liberals want to make up for their leadership's rather lax opposition to the promotion of William Rehnquist to Chief Justice and the appointment of conservative Antonin Scalia to the court last year. Moreover, with only 16 months remaining in the Reagan Administration, the Bork issue has become a device to galvanize and unify the disparate interest groups on the left. Neas is overseeing a "megacoalition" of prominent liberal organizations, including the N.A.A.C.P., Common Cause, People for the American Way, the National Organization for Women and the National Abortion Rights Action League. The coalition...