It’s Bork, Stupid, Part Deux

by tristero

Tobin Harshaw, writing in the NY Times Opinionator blog about Kennedy’s role in the defeat of Bork’s SCOTUS nomination back during Reagan, takes a swipe at this post of mine:

Tristero at Hullaballoo knows that it can be proved that Kennedy relied totally on the facts, if only somebody else would actually go and find them.

Typically, in the blogosphere, this would set off entertaining backnforth nastiness, generate mutual accusations of illiteracy, and conclude with pretzelled suggestions as to what should be put, and exactly where, to various family members related to the combatants. Instead, I’ll travel the road rarely taken and simply concede, without any excuses, Harshaw’s point: he’s right. I should have done more studying and written a well-researched defense of Kennedy’s denunciation of Bork.

More importantly, at the very least someone should have written such a post. But nobody has, at least no one with enough visibility to get on Mr. Harshaw’s radar (or mine; please feel free to send links).

Kennedy’s speech against Bork was one of the Senator’s shining moments. It was also one of the last times that a major liberal voice swiftly and directly confronted – without retreating! – a blatant attempt to place extreme right activists in positions of power where they could wreak havoc on the country.* So… instead of celebrating Kennedy’s effort, or even treating it as a he said/she said dustup, Harshaw juxtaposed two video clips – one of Kennedy, the other of the Army/McCarthy hearings.

That’s right: a staff writer at the New York Times directly compared Teddy Kennedy’s yeoman efforts to prevent a well-documented rightwing lunatic from becoming a Supreme Court justice to McCarthy’s fact-free witchhunt against non-existent communists. Fox News didn’t do this. The New York Times did.

This comparison – Ted Kennedy to Joseph McCarthy – is, to be very, very kind, utterly outrageous, but it is not entirely Harshaw’s fault. Or, if you prefer, there is nothing we can do to entirely prevent such fatuous nonsense, but we can certainly make it more difficult to pull off with a straight face. So how about it progressives?**

Even more important than Kennedy/Bork, the extreme right is about to roll out many “new products” for the fall (those who remember September 2002 know what I’m talking about); some, like the “Tea Party Express,” have already started and are timed to climax in September. The bestseller lists are swamped with rightwing screeds, the airwaves filled with nothing but their hateful spokesmen or expressions of sorrow, deliberately emptied of all progressive content, on Kennedy’s death.

And so, whaddawegot for September?

Uh, huh. That’s what I was afraid of.

*Of course. there were other liberals who’ve done fantastic things, eg, Wellstone. But neither he nor any other liberal has since had the national name recognition of a Kennedy or his iconic, legendary, stature. At the very least, Kennedy’s derailing of Bork should not be ignored by progressives, as it has been, almost universally, during the eulogies of the past few days. He saved the country.

**Oh, you bet your bippy I’ll posting the details on Bork, but I shouldn’t be the only one.