Robert Bork was interviewed by Newsweek concerning the Sonia Sotomayor nomination to the Supreme Court. This guy has made a career out of being deemed unfit for the Supreme Court. I’m not sure I’ve heard of failure catipulting anyone so far. Surely Bork being interviewed about another Supreme Court nominee is like a failure like former FEMA Director Mike Brown being interviewed about disaster preparedness. Still, the interview is revealing concerning exactly why Mr. Bork got borked. First, he evidently doesn’t know the difference between sympathy and empathy. From Newsweek:

President Obama has spoken of empathy as his key standard for choosing judicial nominees. What do you think of that approach?

I don’t know exactly what empathy means. I suppose at a minimum it means you want a judge who will depart from the meaning of the constitution when a sympathetic case arises. It does seem to raise a warning that we’re talking about a judge who does not follow the law.

Pretty basic english language skill, to tell the difference between “sympathy” and “empathy,” but there’s some real trouble with getting the english language right over on the conservative side of the political spectrum, so maybe Bork has just been infected by Pat Buchanan and his extremist Republican compadres. It appears that for Bork “empathy” means an opportunity to take political potshots at someone with whom he disagrees. And since that’s the standard Republican definition nowadays, I’d say the Senate was right back in the day to Bork this guy. But it gets better. Here’s Robert Bork on his favorite Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas:

How have you been struck by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito since they were appointed?

My general impression of them is quite good. The justice up there who I most admire is Clarence Thomas. I notice that when he and Scalia differ—it’s not that often, but when they do—I tend to agree with Thomas.

There’s a damned good reason that Bork was borked. He’s clearly certifiable to think Clarence Thomas is the prize on the SCOTUS. I’m not sure you could find one other person out there who would agree with that assessment who is not the member of some whackjob conservative group. I suppose with that answer one has to wonder at the journalistic acumen Newsweek uses to decide to interview Bork. What, and give this kind of whackjobbery legitimacy? Maybe that’s what’s wrong with journalism today, that they think they must get an opposing view, and from as famous a name as possible, regardless of how extremist or insufferable the famous name is.