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Interview With Judge Robert Bork

Aired September 12, 2003 - 15:21   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Former appeals court Judge Robert Bork is well-known for the political battle over his 1987 nomination to the Supreme Court and his views opposing judicial activism. Well, in his new book, "Coercing Virtue: The Worldwide Rule of Judges," Bork outlines what he sees as a growing trend of judges willing to overstep their authority.
I spoke with Robert Bork just a short time ago. And I asked him to explain his theory that liberal politics has taken over the courts.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERT BORK, AUTHOR, "COERCING VIRTUE": Well, there's a war in our culture. There's a big division about culture and about moral issues, in this country, as in every Western nation.

You can see it on election night. You can see the red states and the blue states. And what I call the modern intellectuals, or the Olympians, not referring to athletes, but Greek Gods, lose elections if their values are put up for a vote. One way to win is to go to the courts. And the courts happen to be part of that same intellectual class and responds to it, by and large.

WOODRUFF: Who are these new Olympians, this so-called intellectual class? Who are they?

BORK: University professors, law school professors, print and electronic medium, Hollywood, church clergy and bureaucracies, people who deal in words and symbols and ideas. Ideas, they deal in kind of secondhand. They are not firsthand ideas. They are not an originator of ideas, but they spread ideas.

WOODRUFF: But the notion that the courts around this country or that many of them would just roll over and let these folks take advantage of them is hard to...

BORK: No, no, it's not because they're rolling over.

They themselves are part of that class. And they have been to universities and law schools, where they absorb those value. And they respond. They don't think there's anything odd about it. They think it's a very natural way to be. They respond to the intellectual class. For one thing, they like to be popular on television, newspapers, law schools and universities. And they are conditioned. Now, not every justice is that way, but a majority of them are.

WOODRUFF: But just to go back, again, to the Supreme Court and Chief Justice Rehnquist, this is not a Supreme Court that people generally think of as liberal, far from it.

BORK: Well, people are generally quite wrong, in that case, because it's very liberal. You just had the creation of a right to homosexual sodomy. You just had racial preference upheld. You have had pornography of the worst kind of sort...

WOODRUFF: But you have also had a number of conservative decisions and split decisions on...

BORK: Well, there are a lot of split decisions, but they are very rarely conservative.

WOODRUFF: Are you saying that the popular understanding of what this court is, is just off base?

BORK: I don't know what the popular understanding is.

But if it is popularly understood that this is a conservative court, that is quite wrong. This is a very liberal court.

WOODRUFF: And is this something that just -- that is hopelessly going to be taking place into the distant future or is it something that people like you and others who think it's wrong can do something about?

BORK: All we can do is talk and complain and criticize. And that doesn't seem to have much effect.

As I said someplace, it is like the Arabs saying, the dogs bark, but the caravan moves on. And it's hard to see a reversal of this in the foreseeable future.

WOODRUFF: I want to ask you about something that's just happened recently. We had Miguel Estrada, who was nominated by President Bush, the federal circuit court of appeals, after a lot of controversy, withdraw his name, say he wasn't going to go forward.

What many people are saying is, when the Republicans are in power, the Democrats are obstructing these judicial nominees. When the Democrats are in power, the Republicans are obstructing. Do you see an end to this vicious cycle in terms of nominations?

BORK: No, no, I don't. I don't, because, once courts begin to decide matters that are not in the Constitution, begin to make up rights, as they did with homosexual sodomy, racial preferences, and so forth, they become a political body.

And the politicians are going to fight over who controls that body. And that's going to go on for as long as the courts hold themselves out to decide cases that are not honestly derived from the Constitution.

WOODRUFF: That's a pretty bleak forecast.

BORK: Well, nobody can predict the future for certain. Maybe it will turn around, but I don't see any signs of it right now. (END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Robert Bork with some provocative ideas. Maybe we can get one of the Supreme Court justices to come on and talk about it. We'll keep trying.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired September 12, 2003 - 15:21   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Former appeals court Judge Robert Bork is well-known for the political battle over his 1987 nomination to the Supreme Court and his views opposing judicial activism. Well, in his new book, "Coercing Virtue: The Worldwide Rule of Judges," Bork outlines what he sees as a growing trend of judges willing to overstep their authority.
I spoke with Robert Bork just a short time ago. And I asked him to explain his theory that liberal politics has taken over the courts.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERT BORK, AUTHOR, "COERCING VIRTUE": Well, there's a war in our culture. There's a big division about culture and about moral issues, in this country, as in every Western nation.

You can see it on election night. You can see the red states and the blue states. And what I call the modern intellectuals, or the Olympians, not referring to athletes, but Greek Gods, lose elections if their values are put up for a vote. One way to win is to go to the courts. And the courts happen to be part of that same intellectual class and responds to it, by and large.

WOODRUFF: Who are these new Olympians, this so-called intellectual class? Who are they?

BORK: University professors, law school professors, print and electronic medium, Hollywood, church clergy and bureaucracies, people who deal in words and symbols and ideas. Ideas, they deal in kind of secondhand. They are not firsthand ideas. They are not an originator of ideas, but they spread ideas.

WOODRUFF: But the notion that the courts around this country or that many of them would just roll over and let these folks take advantage of them is hard to...

BORK: No, no, it's not because they're rolling over.

They themselves are part of that class. And they have been to universities and law schools, where they absorb those value. And they respond. They don't think there's anything odd about it. They think it's a very natural way to be. They respond to the intellectual class. For one thing, they like to be popular on television, newspapers, law schools and universities. And they are conditioned. Now, not every justice is that way, but a majority of them are.

WOODRUFF: But just to go back, again, to the Supreme Court and Chief Justice Rehnquist, this is not a Supreme Court that people generally think of as liberal, far from it.

BORK: Well, people are generally quite wrong, in that case, because it's very liberal. You just had the creation of a right to homosexual sodomy. You just had racial preference upheld. You have had pornography of the worst kind of sort...

WOODRUFF: But you have also had a number of conservative decisions and split decisions on...

BORK: Well, there are a lot of split decisions, but they are very rarely conservative.

WOODRUFF: Are you saying that the popular understanding of what this court is, is just off base?

BORK: I don't know what the popular understanding is.

But if it is popularly understood that this is a conservative court, that is quite wrong. This is a very liberal court.

WOODRUFF: And is this something that just -- that is hopelessly going to be taking place into the distant future or is it something that people like you and others who think it's wrong can do something about?

BORK: All we can do is talk and complain and criticize. And that doesn't seem to have much effect.

As I said someplace, it is like the Arabs saying, the dogs bark, but the caravan moves on. And it's hard to see a reversal of this in the foreseeable future.

WOODRUFF: I want to ask you about something that's just happened recently. We had Miguel Estrada, who was nominated by President Bush, the federal circuit court of appeals, after a lot of controversy, withdraw his name, say he wasn't going to go forward.

What many people are saying is, when the Republicans are in power, the Democrats are obstructing these judicial nominees. When the Democrats are in power, the Republicans are obstructing. Do you see an end to this vicious cycle in terms of nominations?

BORK: No, no, I don't. I don't, because, once courts begin to decide matters that are not in the Constitution, begin to make up rights, as they did with homosexual sodomy, racial preferences, and so forth, they become a political body.

And the politicians are going to fight over who controls that body. And that's going to go on for as long as the courts hold themselves out to decide cases that are not honestly derived from the Constitution.

WOODRUFF: That's a pretty bleak forecast.

BORK: Well, nobody can predict the future for certain. Maybe it will turn around, but I don't see any signs of it right now. (END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Robert Bork with some provocative ideas. Maybe we can get one of the Supreme Court justices to come on and talk about it. We'll keep trying.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com