It Isn't Borking

There's a growing meme among the ranks of Harriet Miers defenders that she has been "Borked." This is a dangerous falsehood with serious future implications for the conservative movement. Today one prominent commentator said "But no fair reader who actually reviews what was written, said, and done over the past three-plus weeks will deny the neoBorking that occurred. It just isn't possible to do so." In addition to being yet another argument by personal attack--if you don't agree with me you're not fair-minded--this statement is demonstrably false on its face. If we want to heal the breach caused by the President with his nomination of Harriet Miers, we're going to have to be honest about what really happened.

When Ted Kennedy went to the floor of the Senate to attack Judge Bork, he described, "Robert Bork's America is 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, children could not be taught about evolution." Of course this was a completely distorted set of lies, not based on any evidence at all.

When principled conservatives raised questions about Harriet Miers' lack of credentials, not to be a judge, but as to whether she was a proven constitutional conservative, we asked (repeatedly) her defenders to provide evidence. That is not Borking. We asked (repeatedly) for something better than "Trust me." That is not Borking. We asked (repeatedly) for proof of her commitment to judge "in the mold of Scalia and Thomas. That is not Borking.

What we got instead were her own past words and actions promoting affirmative action, arguing in favor of racial quotas, promoting feminist ideology, deriding the Federalist Society (under oath), and sounding a very uncertain note on abortion. Pointing these facts out is not Borking. Her defenders simply dismissed these troubling signs, refusing to grant them any weight. in fact, the more the evidence accumulated, the louder they became in deriding it. But in the absence of a single shred of proof of her conservatism beyond the "trust me" kind of personal testimony, how else are we to evaluate?

Lying about a person with the intent to destroy them is Borking. NRO made a factual error in saying Miers had not written for law reviews. They corrected that error immediately when it was pointed out to them. That is not Borking. People (including me) said the President had failed to fulfill his campaign promise regarding the kind of judge he would appoint. Unless someone has evidence to demonstrate she is a constitutional originalist, and if they had surely it would have been presented at some point during this painful saga, the statement stands unchallenged. That is not Borking.