In Memoriam: Robert H. Bork (1927-2012)

I would be remiss in allowing the evening to slip by without mentioning the loss of a magnificent legal scholar and the conservative movement’s champion of originalism, Judge Robert H. Bork.

TheFederalistSociety: Judge Bork was a legal giant, and a man of unsurpassed integrity, intellect, courage, and kindness...Our nation owes Judge Bork an enormous debt of gratitude for his irrepressible and forceful defense of the Constitution as it was written and understood by our Founding Fathers, pioneering a jurisprudence of original meaning that has had enormous influence in the legal academy as well as in the courts.

The Judge’s unparalleled wisdom and wonderful wit will be missed. Fortunately much of it will endure through his enormous body of published writings, speeches and lectures that future generations can enjoy and profit from. Robert Bork's contributions and achievements are already a part of the fabric of our country. His memory and legacy live on, and, we hope, will further help to preserve America’s exceptional commitment to limited, constitutional government and the rule of law.

With the daily tests of the current administration, it's not a stretch to say that America's in dire need of a recommitment to its Constitution and Rule of Law.

Ed Morrissey of HotAir adds...

Perhaps no jurist has had as much impact in our lifetimes as Robert Bork without sitting on the Supreme Court — and perhaps no jurist has been as unfairly maligned. After a life of public service, the US Senate under the direction of Ted Kennedy conducted a character assassination on Bork that denied him a seat on the high court and turned his surname into a synonym for smear campaigns. Bork’s reputation outshone those of his critics in the end, however, and Bork remained influential on a new generation of legal thought.

And Roger Kimball at PJMedia so boldly, and so rightfully, proclaims...

In a way, Robert Bork had the last laugh. Ted Kennedy went to his grave a rancid, lumbering, pathetic laughing stock. Bork went from intellectual triumph to intellectual triumph, contributing now-classic studies to the library of legal understanding and penning two of the most important works of social criticism of the last several decades, the aofrementioned Tempting of America and Slouching Toward Gemorrah, wild bestsellers both. I am proud to say that this spring Encounter Books will be publishing a memoir by Judge Bork called Saving Justice: Watergate,. The Saturday Night Massacre, and Other Adventures of a Solicitor General.

The following tribute video was made in 2007 by the Federalist Society, who presented it during a full-day conference honoring Judge Bork and his contributions to law.



Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh, Andrew McCarthy, Mark Levin and many other conservatives throughout the day honored the life of this exceptional conservative mind.

Robert Bork, 85, died early Wednesday morning after a long battle with heart and pulmonary complications. His funeral is scheduled for Saturday and a memorial service is in preparations.