Robert Borks America is a land in which women would be forced into back alley abortions.

Blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters.

Rogue police could break down citizens' doors and midnight raids.

And school children could not be taught about evolution.

Writers and artists would be censured at the whim of government.

And the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is and is often the only protector of the individual rights that

are the heart of our democracy.

Hello and welcome to Whistle Soap, a podcast of the presidency.

I'm John Dickerson, co-host of CBS this morning.

This is the story of Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court, and his defeat four months later, one of the greatest battles in Supreme Court history and a critical moment in the modern history of American partisanship.

It was the flashpoint that kicked off our nearly constant state of flashpoints.

Our whistle stop today is June 26, 1987, and President Ronald Reagan is looping the blue ink over the pages of his leather-bound diary.

The brisk entries in the diary of Ronald Reagan are charming and human.

How human?

Sometimes matters of great weight are mixed in with the chief executives' most prosaic recordings.

And so it was when the consequential news arrived in his year that Justice Lewis Powell,

the swing vote on the Supreme Court was retiring, allowing the 40th president to name a

replacement that could change the course of American political and cultural life.

The entry on June 26th read, A short but busy day. I started taking the Go Lightly at 7.30 a.m.,

8 ounce glass, and every 15 minutes thereafter for 13 glasses. All preparation for my checkup.

At staff time learned Justice Powell was retiring from Supreme Court. I'll have an appointment to make.

Go Lightly for the Blessedly Uninitiated is a laxative,

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