The Honorable Robert Bork Passes at 85, Heaven is Gaining Some Good People, To Our Loss

I read (and loved) Judge Bork’s book, Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline. I highly recommend it to those that wish a heavy read on law, liberalism, and culture. I will be getting the recently released, A Time to Speak: Selected Writings and Arguments (American Ideals & Institutions), here is a quick description from Amazon:

Since at least 1971, when he published a seminal article on constitutional interpretation in the Indiana Law Journal, Robert Bork has been the legal and moral conscience of America, reminding us of our founding principles and their cultural foundation. The scourge of liberal ideologues both before and after Ronald Reagan nominated him for the Supreme Court in 1987, Bork has for fifty years unwaveringly exposed—and explained—the hypocrisy and dereliction of duty endemic among our nation’s elites, the politicization and adversary activism of our courts, and the consequent degradation of American society.

Now, for the first time, Judge Bork has gathered together his most important and prophetic writings in A Time to Speak, including a foreword and commentary by the author. The volume includes more than sixty vintage Bork contributions on topics ranging from President Nixon to St. Thomas More, from abortion to antitrust policy, and from civil liberties to natural law. It also includes several of his judicial opinions and transcribed oral arguments. A Time to Speak is an indispensable book for all who have harkened to the truths spoken so forthrightly, in season and out, by this great American original.

Judge Bork is a legend in conservative speak. Here is the Washington Time’s short blurb about him today:

Robert H. Bork, who stepped in to fire the Watergate prosecutor at Richard Nixon’s behest and whose failed 1980s nomination to the Supreme Court helped draw the modern boundaries of cultural fights over abortion, civil rights and other issues, has died. He was 85.

Son Robert H. Bork Jr. confirmed the death Wednesday. His father had a long career in politics and the law that took him from respected academic to a totem of conservative grievance.

Bork was accused of being a partisan hatchet man for Nixon when he fired Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox in the Saturday Night Massacre of 1973.

Bork’s drubbing during the 1987 Senate nomination hearings made him a hero to the right and a rallying cry for younger conservatives.