Most, though not all, of the public have short historical memories. But Republicans, whose party symbol is an elephant reputed to have a long memory, can’t easily forget or forgive what happened to their nominee to the US Supreme Court in 1987 at the hands of a Democratic Senate. That memory casts a long shadow on President Obama’s pledge to present a nominee to the court “in due time.”

In 1987 President Reagan nominated Judge Robert Bork to the court. Arguably one of the keenest legal minds of his time, Bork had been a Yale Law School professor, U.S. Solicitor General, Acting Attorney General and a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals. Like recently deceased Justice Scalia, Bork was a conservative who believed in an “originalist” interpretation of the Constitution: judges should exercise restraint in deciding cases and be guided by the framers’ original understanding of that document.

Within 45 minutes of Bork’s nomination Senator Ted Kennedy said this in a nationally televised speech: “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, school children could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censured at the whim of the government and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens.” VP Joe Biden, then a senator, presided over Bork’s hearing. Bork’s nomination was defeated by a vote of 58 to 42. Only two Democrats voted in his favor.

Four years later, when black conservative Justice Clarence Thomas’ nomination came before the Senate, feminist Florence Kennedy (no relation to Ted), addressed a conference of the National Organization for Women regarding Thomas’ nomination with these words: “We’re going to bork him, We’re going to kill him politically … this little creep, where did he come from”?

Twenty-four years late columnist Joe Nocera wrote in the NY Times: “The Bork fight, in some ways, was the beginning of the end of civil discourse in politics … The anger between Democrats and Republicans, the unwillingness to work together, the profound distrust — the line from Bork to today’s ugly politics is a straight line.”

Nocera added: “The next time a liberal asks why Republicans are so intransigent, you might suggest that the answer lies in the mirror.”

In 2002 the verb “bork” was added to the dictionary: to obstruct, especially a candidate for public office, through systematic defamation or vilification.

A donkey is the symbol of the Democratic Party. The symbol originated from the 1828 campaign of Democrat Andrew Jackson (his likeness is on the $20 bill) when his political opponents called him a jackass.

Don’t blame Republicans if they act like jackasses.

———

Walter J. Eno lives in Scarborough.