Richard Nixon called a lot of people bastards.

American generals, the citizens of North Vietnam, the journalist Dan Rather,

and as you'll hear in this clip from his secret White House tapes,

he also used the epithet against another branch of government.

You know those clowns we got on there, I'll tell you, I will buy outlit the bastards.

Why won't you do, too?

I mean politically, too, because we've got to change that court.

The Supreme Court has never been more liberal than it was in the 1950s and 60s.

Led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, they had banned segregation in public schools,

outlawed school prayer, and ruled that every criminal defendant had the right to a lawyer,

even if they couldn't afford one.

Conservatives accused the Warren Court of legislating from the bench.

And it's one of the things that Nixon campaigns on in 1968.

That's Jim Robynall. He's a lawyer and the author of the book, January 1973.

He is a big opponent of Earl Warren, and he believes that the court is making up rights

that aren't in the Constitution, and he wants to appoint only justices

who are what he called strict constructionists.

Nixon got his chance to change the court right away.

Two seats opened up in his first year in office.

His first nominee was from Minnesota.

Warren Berger sailed through the Senate and became the new Chief Justice,

replacing Nixon's enemy Earl Warren.

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