For those interested, the Federalist Society will be sponsoring "A Conference Discussing the Contributions of Judge Robert H. Bork" next Tuesday, June 26, in Washington, DC. I will be on the 2:30 Panel with Princeton Professor Robert George and Northwestern law professor Steven Calabresi, discussing Bork's book Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and America's Decline. Slouching is my least favorite among Judge Bork's books (which may be why I got asked to be on this particular panel:)). I intend to criticize his call for extensive government regulation of culture and expression, and instead urge conservatives to apply the same skepticism to government control of culture as they do toward "economic" regulation. Professor George will, I expect, defend Bork's position, while Steve Calabresi will take an intermediate view.

A good time will be had by all! If you are a VC reader attending the conference, stop by and say hello.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I will be taking part in a conference on the works of Judge Robert Bork. Despite suggestions by various commenters, I'm not going to ask Bork about his recent tort lawsuit (which I briefly discussed here). If I get the chance, I would however like to ask whether his views on legal and/or political issues changed as a result of the ordeal he went through during his ultimately unsuccessful Supreme Court nomination process.

Although Bork was a staunch conservative even before the defeat of his nomination, it seems to me that he became more radical (or perhaps more reactionary) in some of his views afterward. For example, in Slouching Towards Gomorrah, the 1996 book I will be commenting on at the conference, Bork advocates the near-total abolition of judicial review. In his pre-confirmation writings, e mehrely defended the view that judges shouldn't overrule statutes unless they went against the original meaning of the Constitution. Slouching is also notable for some quite harsh invective against liberals (for example, comparing them to fascists). This too goes beyond what I have read in his pre-1987 writing.

It would be interesting (at least to me) to know whether Bork held these views even before 1987, or whether (as I suspect) the bitterness caused by the confirmation process radicalized him.