No one should be brutalized like Judge Robert Bork was in the 1980s.

CNN: Commentary: Don't go to war over Sotomayor

And what about the wild battle over Robert Bork's nomination in 1987, which began the current cycle of partisan revenge on the judicial nomination front?

NPR: Filibuster Fight Might Move to High Court Nominee

Specter has been a defender of abortion rights in an overwhelmingly anti-abortion party and opposed President Ronald Reagan's controversial nomination of Robert Bork to a Supreme Court seat in 1987.

CNN: Specter says party switch driven partly by desire to keep seat

In September and October of 1973, Bork played a critical part, along with Attorney General Elliot Richardson, in insisting that Agnew be indicted by the Justice Department unless he resigned from office.

WSJ: Book Review: Saving Justice

The repercussions and resentments from the Bork fight could still be felt reverberating in the Senate debates leading up to the expected showdown this week.

NPR: Filibuster Fight Might Move to High Court Nominee

In "Saving Justice, " Bork reveals that the three men conferred and agreed that Richardson and Ruckelshaus would resign instead of firing Cox.

WSJ: Book Review: Saving Justice

There may be a new consensus that, even if the Areeda-Turner vintage views went too far in one direction, the success of the Bork-Bowman view has brought us too far the other way, has made our legal system too welcoming to price competition that may in fact be adverse to the public good.

FORBES: Antitrust Consensus Shifting As Courts Weigh Impact Of Monopolists And Predators

He was active in the civil-rights movement, and a paid-up Democrat until the Robert Bork debacle of 1987.

ECONOMIST: Charlton Heston

In 1987, Kennedy led the opposition to President Reagan's nominee for the Supreme Court, Robert Bork.

CNN: Kennedy remembered as an advocate for all