The Tempting of America
-
- $23.99
-
- $23.99
Publisher Description
Judge Bork shares a personal account of the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on his nomination as well as his view on politics versus the law.
In The Tempting of America, one of our most distinguished legal minds offers a brilliant argument for the wisdom and necessity of interpreting the Constitution according to the “original understanding” of the Framers and the people for whom it was written.
Widely hailed as the most important critique of the nation’s intellectual climate since The Closing of the American Mind, The Tempting of America illuminates the history of the Supreme Court and the underlying meaning of constitutional controversy. Essential to understanding the relationship between values and the law, it concludes with a personal account of Judge Bork’s chillingly emblematic experiences during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on his Supreme Court nomination.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bork, whom Reagan nominated unsuccessfully to the Supreme Court in 1987, combines here a history of the Court, a theory of how it should operate and a lengthy defense of his judicial record. He claims that virtually all Chief Justices, from those of the New Deal to Earl Warren--with his ``unprincipled activism''--and beyond, have attempted to insert a ``modern liberal agenda'' into their decision-making. He argues that justices should apply the Constitution as its 18th-century ratifiers understood it, and that areas beyond federal powers should be left to the states to decide. Although Bork insists that the Court must apply judicial principles in a neutral, nonpolitical way, he acknowledges that his theory of constitutional praxis would probably favor the conservative policies promoted by Reagan and Bush. Conservatives will applaud this book, while those who opposed Bork's nomination will find here more reasons for having done so.
