Buh Gets Borked

Doc's DIS-patch
The indignity of it all...
George DumbYa Gets Borked!
by Dave "Doctor" Gonzo

Thursday, November 11, 1999--NEW YORK--You can't make this stuff up.

Yesterday, one of my favorite liberal commentators and web talk-show hosts welcomed Judge Robert Bork as his guest. You remember Bork -- the prominent but frequently dissed conservative jurist and judicial activist. He was nominated to the Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan and justifiably (or infamously, depending on how extreme your leanings happen to be) stopped from being named to the Supreme Court following a heated series of Senate Judiciary Committee hearings in 1987 -- a situation that added the verb "Borked" to the political lexicon.

Yes, Bork is very, very conservative on some issues. But he also combines passion with intellect -- and never disappoints as an interview guest.

The Doc just wishes ol' Judge Robert would get rid of that spooky beard that makes him look sort of like a plumped-up Crypt Keeper (as in Tales from the Crypt of Judge Rehnquist).

But I digress.

Judge Bork had some rather -- well, unkind words concerning the hapless GOP presidential front-jogger George DumbBellYou Bush. Bork first lit into Bush for referencing the title of Bork's book Slouching Toward Gomorrah: "He didn't read the book and I'm sure he didn't even know it was a book that he was talking about! His speechwriter put that in."

Ouch! Bork said he was none too pleased with Bush's use of the term to slam GOP members of Congress. He should be equally displeased that Bush probably wouldn't "get" the book's message without crib notes from Karl Rove -- with as few multisyllabic words as possible.

And that was only the beginning. A little later in the interview, Bork said what may amount to the Quote of the Year concerning The Shrub:

"I hate to tell you this, but I think Dan Quayle would have been -- is far better [than Bush] in terms of intellect and ability. I mean it, and Dan Quayle has a very undeserved reputation as a lightweight."

Bork cited the 1988 Quayle-Bentsen debate in which Quayle "was so heavily scripted by the Bush people" he could not be his own man.

Bork then hammered Bush for his kid-gloves handling of Pat Buchanan: "[Buchanan] is politically anti-Semitic."

It was absolutely priceless -- and, for those of you not familiar with Bork the "celebrity" interviewee, almost as hard-hitting as his "grousing" tour of talk shows after he failed to make the Supreme Court.

Within hours of the interview having gone live in RealAudio, email boxes and message boards were buzzing with word of the interview. One of The Doc's Beltway contacts told him that Bush's rivals for the Republican Presidential nod were "having a field day" with the interview: "this isn't just raw meat for the Get Bush crowd -- this is Steak Tartare!"

It should also be pointed out that much of the interview dealt with the Microsoft monopoly flap -- and Bork, who has represented web browser pioneer Netscape, has broken with many of his free market brethren, joining a surprising chorus of jurists agreeing that Bill Gates's blue-screen-of-death megacorp should be broken up.

And given my long-running feelings about the buggy Windows OS, I don't begrudge Bork one nickel of the money he's made advising Netscape!

Meanwhile, things got a little bit out of control over at the Forbes 2000 Secure Server -- seems a lot of people received an erroneous e-mail message warning them that they had "maxed out" their contributions to Steverino!

The Forbes 2000 Webmaster sent out a "rapid response" email message: "Mea Culpa. That's Latin for my fault. And boy, was it ever! The e-mail you received last night or this morning said you had 'maxed out' to the Forbes presidential campaign. Well, we wish that was true -- but in many cases it wasn't. Don't get me wrong: we're very grateful for any support you give the campaign. This was simply a computer mistake.... [we were] swamped with messages notifying me that all was not well in cyberspace."

Now that's an understatement! It's the latest Net debacle in the Forbes campaign, following on the technical problems that plagued his "live on the Internet" announcement of candidacy.

At least Shrubya has had the brains to revamp his site -- it looks better, loads faster, and has deeper content than Forbes's or McCain's site.

Too bad it's being wasted on a candidate with all the depth of a mud puddle on a spring day in Austin.

'Nuff said!

More of The Doc's articles here!