Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Only if you just disregard what came before. Before Carter, the Senate played a very big role in selecting federal judges. Carter instituted selection committees to pick the judges on merit, and diminished greatly the home-state Senator's role in picking a nominee. This was new. Reagan took this newly centralized power and added an ideological element to it, looking for conservatives. This was new. The Senate then -- particularly with Bork -- acted on its power to block nominees. This was new, too. Insofar as its true to say that before Bork, the Senate hadn't blocked nominees for ideological reasons, that is basically because until Reagan, judges weren't getting picked for ideological reasons but rather because they were tight with a Senator. What the Senate did with Bork was the obvious reaction to what Reagan was doing with Article III appointments.
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Bork was ruined solely for petty and vile reasons. No one questioned his ability. The Dems played dirty and personal. They did things that were previously unheard of to achieve their goals, thing that were "wrong" given how the Senate had always functioned. In that sense it is certainly a step towards the behavior this turncoat aide is talking about (and by the way what kind of simp "retires" still an aide? that's pathetic.)
I had a government job and a vote during the Bork holocaust. Unless you had both accept my word on this.
