Judge Bork is not the conservative or liberal nominee.

He is America's nominee to the United States Supreme Court.

Hello and welcome to Whistle Stop, the podcast of the presidency.

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

This is the second episode of our examination of the nomination and defeat of Judge Robert Bork

to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court.

The judge's authority derives entirely from the fact that he is applying the law and not his

personal values.

That is why the American public accepts the decisions of its courts, accepts even decisions that nullify the laws a majority

of the electorate or of their representatives voted for. Our whistle stop today is September 15th,

1987, and we are in the Senate caucus room in Washington, D.C.

And that voice you just heard was Associate Justice designee or designate Robert Bork, starting off his five days of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

That was his opening statement that kicked off a total of 12 days of tense exchanges between Bork and the witnesses called to stand up for him or rain down upon him.

All on both sides, plumbing the legal code for weaponry and the debate over the nature of Bork's jurisprudence and the direction of the highest court in the land.

We have become accustomed in the modern age to these periods in American life.

We are heretofore unknown men and women have become the central characters on the national stage,

not because of some disaster or calamity or political campaign, but because they have been given a job promotion by the President of the United States.

This week in the present time, Brett Kavanaugh is the wallpaper that runs from the screens on our

TVs and delis and airports and the digital devices that glow in our pockets.

Array to cross from those characters of the senator, some groping around in their law school learning

for pointed questions, others turning up the dial to full fulmination as they exhale in paragraphs.

And then there are still others performing their dinner theater twirls and gesticulations

...