The Tempting of America
Robert Bork

Robert Bork served as Solicitor General and acting Attorney General in the 1970s. He was a Federal Circuit Judge in the 1980s. President Reagan nominated him to a position on the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987. The Senate rejected his nomination after an intense media campaign against him and a contentious confirmation hearing in the Senate. He published this book in 1990 to explain his judicial philosophy and to offer his perspective on the recent hubbub.

Subtitled "The Political Seduction of the Law," this massive work surveys U.S. court decisions about the meaning of the Constitution, especially those that modify or add to its principles. He explains his belief that judges should not create new rights and new laws from the bench. Rather, judges should apply laws, including the Constitution, as they were written. In the final section, he details the nomination and confirmation process through which he went and offers responses to some of the charges leveled against him.

If Robert Bork had secured a seat on the Supreme Court, our national legal environment would likely be in a better state today. I disagree with some of Bork's conclusions, but I agree with his main point that courts are supposed to be arbitors, not dictators. They are supposed to interpret and apply the decisions of the legislative branch, not become a legislative branch of their own.

(I would not recommend reading the entire book, though the final section is historically interesting. Bork's style is verbose and repetitive. I am glad that I beefed up my legal knowledge, but you can get essentially the same message I got by reading this review.)

(The Free Press/Macmillan, 1990)