Ted Kennedy

=truthdigThe campaign to torpedo Bork’s nomination took shape quickly. On July 1, 1987, the day <a href="https://youtu.be/u6QKdiSIW0c" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Reagan proudly announced Bork’s nomination</a>, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass) took to the senate floor to denounce Bork’s selection to replace retiring conservative jurist Justice Lewis Powell. (Powell is <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-right-wing-legacy-of-justice-lewis-powell-and-what-it-means-for-the-supreme-court-today/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">best remembered in progressive circles</a> for a <a href="https://www.thwink.org/sustain/articles/017_PowellMemo/PowellMemoReproduction.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">confidential memo</a> he penned in 1971 urging business leaders to become more involved in high-stakes litigation and the selection of judges, advice that led to the formation of institutions such as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Roundtable" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Business Roundtable</a>, the Heritage Foundation, the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Cato Institute, the Federalist Society and the <a href="https://www.chamberlitigation.com/" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Chamber of Commerce National Litigation Center</a>.)In words that would come to doom Bork’s nomination and spark a roiling debate about originalism that continues to this day, Kennedy decried <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Robert_Bork's_America" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">what he called</a> “Robert Bork’s America” as “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, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is often the only protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy.”For 12<a href="https://archive.org/stream/bork_transcripts/Bork-3_djvu.txt" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"> days in September</a>, the Senate Judiciary Committee debated Bork’s qualifications, and heard five days of candid testimony from Bork himself. Much of the scrutiny focused on originalism as a method of constitutional interpretation and judicial decision-making. The prominent constitutional scholars that testified against Bork included Professor <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/23/us/the-bork-hearings-foe-warns-bork-views-pose-a-serious-risk-to-freedoms.html" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Laurence Tribe of Harvard</a> and Professor <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_B.Kurland" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Philip Kurland of the University of Chicago</a>, who had worked as a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1996/04/18/us/philip-b-kurland-74-scholar-who-ruled-on-nixon-tapes.html" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">consultant</a> to the Senate Judiciary Committee during the Watergate investigation.Outside the D.C. Beltway, another fierce battle took place. By the time the Senate hearings commenced, anti-Bork forces <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/11/us/washington-talk-fund-raisers-bork-as-a-bonanza.html" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">had raised</a> a war chest of $12 million. In a manner similar to today’s political campaigns, the money was spent on focus groups, opinion polls, media consultants and especially on print, radio and TV advertising.A <a href="http://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1048&context=reviews" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">newspaper ad</a> taken out by the National Abortion Rights Action League asserted a vote for Bork was the equivalent of voting for a politician who threatened to reverse “every advance women have made in the 20th century.” Similar ads were placed by the National Education Association and Planned Parenthood.Most devastating of all was a 60-second <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOkqcUF7E1A" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">television spot</a> paid for by People for the American Way and narrated by the famed actor Gregory Peck. In his best Atticus Finch voice, Peck sounded the tocsin:=spartacus

Soon after he took office Nixon established Operation Sandwedge. Organized by <a href="http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKhaldeman.htm">H. R. Haldeman</a> and <a href="http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKehrlichman.htm">John Ehrlichman</a>, the two main field officers were <a href="http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKcaulfieldJ.htm">Jack Caulfield</a> and <a href="http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKUlasewicz.htm">Anthony Ulasewicz</a>. Operation Sandwedge involved a secret investigation of <a href="http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAkennedyE.htm">Edward Kennedy</a>. Caulfield later admitted that Ulasewicz’s reports on Kennedy went to three people: Nixon, Chotiner and <a href="http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKrebozo.htm">Bebe Rebozo</a>.