

Robert Bork has died. Bork is best known in public memory for his failed Supreme Court nomination, which thankfully foundered on the rank extremism of his beliefs. And those beliefs were vile—not because of the stark principles that purportedly undergirded them, but because of the bigotry and contempt for modernity they masked. But more vile than his reactionary agenda was his hatred for democracy and his fealty to incipient tyranny, as expressed in his willingness to follow anti-Semitic madman Richard Nixon down the rabbit hole of criminality.

It was Bork who, as solicitor general of the United States in 1973, stepped up to the plate and carried out an order from Nixon that two of his superiors found too abjectly corrupt to obey. In what became known as the Saturday Night Massacre, Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox and his entire staff. The order came shortly after Cox had, over the objections of the president, subpoenaed a cache of presidential tape recordings. It was obvious to Richardson what was going on: The president of the United States feared that a federal prosecutor was close to obtaining evidence of his personal participation in a criminal conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws and illegally sabotage and surveil his political opponents. So he ordered Richardson to take care of the problem.

Richardson had a spine and character, so he refused, choosing to resign instead of help a liar and a cheat mop up his crimes. The order then fell to Richardson's deputy, William Ruckelshaus, who likewise summoned the courage to step down rather than fire Cox.






[Image via AP]