Put A Bork In It
The Carpetbagger Report asks Since when did Bork become a martyr? — and links to Jonathan Chait’s column in the LA Times that explains why Bork actually was a completely unacceptable wingnut. Nowadays, of course, he’s seen as the Joan of Arc if the right wing freakshow, but the truth is that he makes even Scalia look halfway reasonable. I recall him saying on Larry King one night during the Clinton panty raid that the president could be impeached for committing a depraved act — oral sex. He’s nutty as a fruitcake.
When I was researching something else recently I came across this little known fact (at least to me) and I wonder if anyone out ther can verify it. Maybe it’s common knowledge and I missed it — wouldn’t be the first time.
In the years after the Saturday Night Massacre, a well-known joke said that “borking” was “firing a man for doing exactly what he was hired to do” (i.e. Judge Bork had “borked” Archibald Cox, whose job had been to investigate criminal activities in the Nixon White House). After Bork’s confirmation hearings, however, a new meaning was given to Bork’s name: to be borked is to have one’s presidential appointment defeated by the U.S. Senate.
I knew, of course, that Bork fired Cox and I knew he was reviled for it by all but the most rabid Nixon defenders. But I never heard that called Borking. If it’s true, and the Republicans have managed to completely change the meaning of that term, then you really have to hand it to them. And Borkie owes them his immortal soul.
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