European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - July 9, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse Parja 10 the stabs and stripes thursday july 9. 1987 James j. Kilpatrick Bork should be confirmed by lopsided vote Edward Kennedy is having hysterics. Joe Biden is scuttling for cover. Along the left Field foul line the banshees arc howling 10 High heaven. What the commotion president Reagan has nominated a superlatively qualified Jurist. Robert Bork to inc . Supreme court and Bork is ugh gasp Pargh a conservative. Listen if you please. Loscon. Kennedy. Bork he says wants an America in which women would be forced into Back Alley abortions Blacks would Sil at Segre gated lunch counters rogue police could break Down citric is doors in Midnight raids schoolchildren would not be taught about evolution writers and artists could be censored Al the whim of gov Crimeni. And the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions what Bilge what absolute rubbish the senator s fountains of hyperbole erupt from puddles of wild sur Mise. True. Bork hns criticized the supreme courts decision in Roe is. Wade the famed abortion Case. So have scores of other scholars. Ii was a terrible piece of constr Luliona Law. But to assume Hal bark is fairly slavering 10 overrule that piece of judicial activism is to rely in a doubtful Assumption. And if Roe is. Wade were overturned. The effect would be to restore the abortion Issue to stale Legislatures where it had reposed for a Hundred years before six members of the High court rewrote the Constitution in 1v73, what else Kennedy says Hal Berk favors rogue police who could break Down our doors at Midnight. Kennedy cannot possibly believe any such Jim Fain thing. The genesis of his ridiculous charge is that Bork lakes a strict View of the exclusionary he has lilt a use for some of inc metaphysical divination in which inc court has engaged in recent years. He would admit Proha Sivc evidence unless Here were truly Good reasons for excluding in. Sen. Biden As chairman of he judiciary Commil inc was quite prepared last year 1o Volt 10 confirm Bork for a seat on inc supreme court. Now the gentleman from Delaware is waffling backing up flip flopping. He is bidding for inc political support of he anti Hork loonies and he is losing his image of integrity in the process. We ought to understand Whin these two influential san airs arc up to. They seem determined to destroy a system of constitutional checks and balances that has worked from he very beginning of inc Republic. Under the Constitution presidents have the Power 10 Nomi Nate. Senators have the Power to confirm. The unwritten Rule is thai even the most controversial nominees provided they arc judicially qualified will be con firmed twice in this Century the Senate has abandoned that Rule and in both instances with the nominations of John j. Parker in 1930 and Clement Haynsworth m 1969 the Senate disgraced itself by capitulating to the demands of organized labor is Bork an "extremist1".1 if so. Then surely the same pejorative tag could have been Hung on Thurgood Marshall when he was nominated in 1967 to succeed Tom Clark. Marshall had spent 20 years As head of the a act s Legal defense fund he was far More ardent in support of the civil rights act than Boris Ever has been eloquent in criticizing it. But Marshall was con firmed 6 m i. Remember Frankfurter he was a founder Oft lil american civil liberties Union n Flam ing Liberal who never Drew a conservative breath. He was confirmed in 1939 by voice vote after Only 11 Days of protest from the right Wing. Critics called Louis Brandeis an anarchist he was confirmed 47-12. Harlan Stone in 1925 was Aboul As Rock ribbed a Republican As Coolidge could have found Only six Voles were cast against his Confirma Tion. Harding named Pierce duller to the court in 1922 for one reason he wanted one More conservative to vote with Van divan tar. Mcreynolds and Sutherland. The nomination caused the same kind of uproar we arc hearing now. Butler was denounced As a reactionary who had thrill scr dissent As Regent of the University of Minnesota but less than a month after his inc Senate confirmed him 61-b. Bork s qualifications arc impressive. In the almost unbroken tradition of this Century he deserves confirmation by a lopsided vote. If the Junior senior from Delaware should win the White House next year. Which a merciful heaven should forfend he will have Al least i rec predictable vacancies to fill i hereby Promise that if president Biden nominates judge As qualified As Dob Bork. I will Noi complain at his Liberal choices i would say. As i say of Reagan he s Emit cd. Universal pj3 synd Cul . Can f afford to renege on pledge to Kuwait is. Policy in the persian Gulf is like renter Field in the baseball who Csc about multiple errors so fouled up nobody can play it. Sure we were nuts to knuckle under to terrorism and Arm Iran. True we should have settled on a Gulf strategy Long ago. Of course we should have consulted with Al lies worked out a cooperative plan and enlisted the help of Arab Stales who need our Protection. Had we played the hand differently Kuwait never would have appealed to the soviet Union. Even then we could at least have glanced before the big leap but that s nol president Reagan. He dozes until reason Able options Are foreclosed then darts on impulse. But. As retired Marine Den. . Kelley said life is full of Lousy of Lions. We have to Deal with what is. Not what might have been. The Frei is. We have agreed to re nag and escort 11 kuwaiti tankers. To renege would destroy what remains of our credibility after Beirut and Iran. Though Europe and Japan use most of inc gulfs Oil because of geography we arc dependent on ii. The world s Oil is a Pool and we import More than anyone. Our Security would be seriously threat ened should the soviet Union dominate Gulf shipping lanes. Congress As usual is Quick to cite flaws in Reagan s policy but mute As to what it would do. A flagging May nol be the greatest idea since disposable Dia pers but in s Whai we Vegol. Nobody has offered an alternative except to Bug out in one Guise or did that in Vietnam and never mind Hal our commitment was disproportionate to what was at slake. We did it in Lebanon. We did it when we tried to Ransom hostages. If everything we say turns Oul to be a Bluff we re on our Way to becoming a joke. Because of Oil. The Gulf is vital. It s Nola sideshow like Grenada or Nicaragua. Should in be lost the Sara logic balance would be materially altered. We have logo ahead with the re flagging and Back n with whatever Force is required accept ing the fact this May put us in conflict with Iran which almost certainly will retaliate at some level. The american people will support what Ever is needed if Reagan will level with them. The notion Hal a democracy won t sacrifice for worthy foreign goals is non sense. We won wars in Iii presidents started pretending they Ere something else. Vietnam had almost Universal support Al first. Lyndon Johnson s insistence on Buller As Well As guns plus his unwilling Ness to mobilize reserves and univ Rosa ii burdens produced ambiguities of policy and inequalities of sacrifice that nearly lore the nation apart. Reagan has tried to substitute rhetoric for resolve. He talks a mean game but has been wary of committing Force. Virtually All politicians faint if anyone mentions a draft. Additional taxation or Oiher tools for sharing the Bur Dens of using Force to maintain Freedom. Such Legal requirements As inc War Powers act Are was of expressing frustration at political cowardice. The device does t Mailer but Reagan should Tome before Congress and the nation now with full disclosure of what he believes is Al stake Hise Simale of the Cost and How he proposes to apportion ii. Any Hollywood con is of for inc phone patriotism of morning in America and fireworks at the statue of Libert. When in Comet to dying face Down in mud nothing a than truth will do. Co. It Law to
