IN 1987, the Reagan administration seriously underestimated the energy and ruthlessness that its opponents would be willing to bring to bear against a Supreme Court nominee.

There was no excuse for being thus taken by surprise: earlier campaigns against various Court of Appeals nominees had shown what the organized left was willing to do. For example, Daniel Manion–confirmed in a squeaker, by a Republican Senate; Alex Kozinski–confirmed after suffering attacks for demanding work from his employees; Jeff Sessions–defeated by a 10-8 Judiciary Committee vote (with Arlen Specter, now chairman of the Judiciary Committee member, among the nays). These experiences even led to the publication by the Free Congress Foundation of a book called The Judges’ War, edited by Patrick McGuigan. And all this was before the Bork battle.