Sandefur on Bork

Timothy Sandefur has taken note of the posts on Bork by myself and Jon Rowe and added his own voice to the discussion (if there is anything that bonds the three of us together, it's our shared distaste for Robert Bork). I like this passage a lot:

The cure, you see, for the misery of homosexuals in a society which condemns homosexuality, is to ratchet up the persecution. This is the logic of Torquemada, for Christsake! How can this man be taken seriously? And yet he is not only taken seriously; he is the intellectual leader of today's conservatives. He is alluded to by the President of the United States in the presidential debates. He is fêted and admired and quoted and cited respectably by members of the Federalist Society (of which he is one of two leaders). He is at the forefront.

And he is right. Despite the obvious lunacy of his views, Bork is the single most influential legal scholar among conservatives. To those of us who have actually read his legal writings, that fact would be mind-boggling except for one consideration - Bork gives intellectual cover and apparent justification to their desire to control other people. He is therefore convenient for them.