More Fun with Republican Computer Break-Ins

"There appears to have been no hacking, no stealing, and no violation of any Senate rule," Miranda said. "Stealing assumes a property right and there is no property right to a government document. . . . These documents are not covered under the Senate disclosure rule because they are not official business and, to the extent they were disclosed, they were disclosed inadvertently by negligent [Democratic] staff."

Because when it's exclusive reporting it takes a day. The deluge will begin tomorrow, and if FBI Filegate was any indication, the liberal media will give up the story in less than a month.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2094333/

Robert Bork was a nominee by Reagan to the Supreme Court back in 1987 who was not approved by the Senate. That is about the only flat and neutral description of the situation you're ever going to hear.

The term refers to Robert Bork, one of the most brilliant and honorable judges ever appointed to the United States Supreme Court, who first faced nitpicking attacks upon his character and then more direct attacks upon his philosophy.

dammit x-post thank you ned, i take it this man may not be quite so "briiliant and honorable", then¿

In the fall of 1973 Leon Jaworski was the special prosecutor investigating the Watergate burglary. His investigation was uncovering many embarassing links between the White House, the Committee to Re-elect the President and the burglary. The President was not happy about the success of this investigation. One Saturday night President Nixon phoned his Attorney General, Eliot Richardson, and ordered him to fire Jaworski. Richardson refused to do so and resigned his post.

Nixon then phoned the next highest official in the Justice Department, an assistant Attorney General whose name escapes me, and gave him the same order. That man also refused to do so and resigned. Nixon then called the third highest official at the Justice Department, the "brilliant and honorable" Robert Bork and gave him the same order. Robert Bork then fired Leon Jaworski.

This incident became known as the Saturday Night Massacre. The Republican Party never forgot Mr. Bork's loyalty.

Bork got "borked" because his legal theories are just to the right of anybody else. For example, not long ago he advocated a constitutional amendment allowing Congress to overturn any Supreme Court decision by majority vote. He's an "originalist," meaning that he claims to believe that the function of the Judge is to determine the intent of the drafters of a particular document (usually the Constitution, but also statutes) and apply that intent.

Of course, the big problem for originalists is that there are a huge number of things we as citizens of the U.S. take for granted that seem to conflict to some degree with the intent of the drafters of the Constitution and amendments thereto. The one big bugaboo that always gets originalists into trouble is Brown v. Bd. of Education, the Supreme Court decision that found "jim crow" public edcuation to be unconstitutional. Bork has tried (and failed, repeatedly) to construct a valid argument that the result in Brown is consistent with the intentions of the drafters of the reconstruction amendments. He has similar problems with judicial review, the post-New Deal regulatory state, anti-miscengenation laws, and racially restrictive covenants for real property sales, amongst others.

In short, Bork is a bit of a lunatic. Add to that his unswerving loyalty to Nixon during the Saturday Night Massacre (n.b. it was Archibald Cox, not Jaworski, who was fired), and you can see why he was not confirmed to the Supreme Court.

interesting Bork fact: Bork is campaigning in PA now for the right-wing GOP challenger to Sen. Arlen Spector. Sen. Spector, if you remember, was one of the Senators who grilled him during his confirmation hearing and found his views to be, um, not-mainstream. and Bork grinds his axe against Sen. Spector in tempting america.

so, on top of having wacky views of the Constitution, Bork is also a vindictive fuck. JUST THE KIND OF PERSON I WANT TO APPOINT TO A LIFETIME POSITION ON THE COUNTRY'S HIGHEST COURT.

(though, to be fair, in comparison to some of the wingnuts Dubya has appointed Bork seems like Thurgood Marshall and Brennan in comparison.)

D'oh! I don't know what on earth could lead to that memory loss on my part. ;)

they say up to "thousands" of files were taken/copied/snooped into...

looks like this went on for 2 years, with about 3K worth of documents grabbed...

...Before the new disclosures, Republicans had erected a common defense, saying the "spying" was little more than some staff members' peeking at a few documents made available to them through a computer flaw. More important, they argued, the documents themselves show a pattern of perfidy on the part of the Democrats in that they consulted and collaborated with outside liberal groups to oppose President Bush's judicial nominees, who were criticized in harsh terms.

But by Thursday, that appeared to some Republican senators a wan comeback.

When the Democrats began their serial denunciations, they all complimented Senator Orrin G. Hatch, the Utah Republican who is chairman of the committee, for his alacrity in initiating the investigation and his statements that he was mortified at what had occurred, comments that have earned him criticism from some conservative groups that he was caving in to the Democrats' demand for an investigation.

"He is the only Republican senator to have apologized for what occurred," said Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat....

...The most unrepentant of Republicans was Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, a member of the Republican leadership. According to the newspaper Roll Call, Mr. Santorum told reporters that he still believed that "the real potential criminal behavior" was with the Democrats because the content showed their unwholesome ways of colluding with outside interest groups to oppose Mr. Bush's judicial nominees.