. >> nixon ended up summoning his solicitor general, a right wing former yale law professor, robert bork, to the white house. he was sworn in as acting attorney general and carried out the president's order to fire cox. the saturday night massacre represented a traumatic suspenseful and unprecedented constitutional crisis. it also became a critical turning point in the watergate story, the moment that nixon lost the country, the moment his beloved silent majority turned on him, the moment that made impeachment proceedings and nixon's resignation inevitable, the most his fate as the most

robert bork who was nice enough to give me a blurb for "dumbing down the courts" talked about how it changed his kids, they were no longer a interested in public life, did go and fall into those types of things that might go and get them in the center of the public eye because labor so traumatized by what happened to their dad. similar types of things and similar discussions over and over again with the other people i talk about so here is the problem. if the brightest nominees would be willing to go through the confirmation process in the 70s and 80s but not willing to do so now, that in some sense the graphs i have shown you about the length of the confirmation process or drop in confirmation rates, if those same individuals who were willing to go forward 30 or 40 years ago were still willing to go through now the confirmation rate went for would be even long veranda confirmation rates would be even lower than what i am able to show you on these graphs, may be dramatically so. so i have talked about who faces the greatest delays and it tends to be the smartest people. there are two

they quit instead leaving richard nixon to turn to the just sworn in acting attorney general robert bork cox. and congress issued 21 resolutions calling for president nixon's impeachment. it's a growing trend in business: do more with less with less energy. hp is helping ups do just that. soon, the world's most intelligent servers, designed by hp, will give ups over twice the performance, using forty percent less energy. multiply that across over a thousand locations, and they'll provide the same benefit to the environment as over 60,000 trees. that's a trend we can all get behind. be careful babe. [ doorbell rings ] let's see what's cookin'. look at this. that's a swiffer. i don't have to climb up. did you notice how clean it looks? morty are you listening? morty? [ morty ] i'm listening! i want you to know. so i should probably get the last roll... yeah but i practiced my bassoon. [ mom ] and i listened. [ brother ] i can do this. [ imitates robot ] everyone deserves ooey, gooey, pillsbury cinnamon rolls. make the weekend pop. add brand new belongings from nationwide insurance and we'l

robert bork was nice enough to give me a blurb for tranfour. they talked about how to change the kids, how they were no longer interested in public life. then go follow this types of things that might go and get them in the center of the public eye because they were so traumatized by what happened to their dad. you have similar types of things in similar discussions over and over again the people. so here's the problem. if the brightest nominees would be willing to go through the confirmation process in the seven decent early 80s, but they're not willing to do so now, then in some sense these graphs i've shown you about the length of the confirmation process, the drop in the confirmation rate at the same individuals were willing to go forward 30, 40 years ago, were still willing to go through now, confirmation would be even longer on the confirmation rates of even lower than what i'm able to show you on this grass. probably even dramatically. so basically i talked about who faces the greatest delays and it tends to be the smartest people. there

i won't get into, but scalia, the supreme court justice, bork--robert bork. c-span: so david macintosh is following that crowd from the university of chicago... >> guest: exactly. c-span: ... law school. >> guest: right. c-span: but you also mentioned people like milton friedman. >> guest: right. c-span: who followed milton friedman's thought? >> guest: well, milton friedman only enters the--he, of course, the libertarian free marketer and so on. he comes into the book mostly as a--as somebody for them to look up to in the '70s. but also for somebody like clint bolick--he--his work on the voucher movement. he and clint kind of got in--were involved both in that. but i--milton friedman--i don't make him, you know, a huge mentor figure in the book. c-span: you quote him in here. is that an interview that you had with him? >> guest: yes. i had an interview at his incredibly beautiful san francisco apartment. yes. but we talked mostly about the--this generation of conservatives and how it was different from the previous generation. and he talked a lot about what

robert bork was named acting attorney general. he was ordered to fire cox. he did. the fbi, acting on orders, sealed off the prosecutor's office. rather.re is dan >> good evening. you very much for being here. we have ground to cover and we have asked panelists to be succinct. we know how difficult that might be. we will stop with bob woodward. recognizing that some members of the audience were not even alive during the dramatic events of watergate, start with a quick snapshot of the scandal that led to the unraveling of the presidency. give us a brief snapshot of what was watergate. >> it is great to start with an easy one. if you look at it broadly, it was an effort to destroy the process by which presidents are nominated to run in the political parties and are elected. it was not just the watergate espionage,t was sabotage operations. if you look into enough of the transcripts, it is clear that regularly he ordered -- illegal abusive activity if you get into it, what you the dog that never barks on the nixon tapes. no one says, what is in the best interest of the

[laughter] question, robert bork was vilified for many for doing the deed of firing cox. he in you both believed bork was in a different moral position, and encourage them to carry out nixon's order. here.rk is can you tell us, is that accurate? did you encourage bob? >> it is accurate. he had not been confirmed when this was going on. it was much earlier in the trouble. it didn't,. he was the third one in the written chain of command in the white house to carry out orders of the kind we were going to receive. after him there was nobody. thee was the arriving -- president could have appointed role.y to take that we told bob that if he could see it within his conscience do so, we would state that he was in a different condition than we were, and we would support his decision. which we did. >> the machinery of government has to continue. >> the institution of the department was in trouble. to the foundation by what had happened. there were fbi agents surrounding both of our offices. he sub rounded the special prosecutor's office. the institutions of government were in troub

solicitor general robert bork was named acting attorney general. he was ordered to fire cox. he did. the fbi, acting on orders, sealed off the prosecutor's ffice. >> here is dan rather. >> good evening. >> thank you very much for being here. we're going to start our panel. we have ground to cover and we have asked panelists to be succinct. we know how difficult that might be. we will stop with bob woodward. recognizing that some members of the audience were not even alive during the dramatic events of watergate, start with a quick snapshot of the scandal that led to the unraveling of the nixon presidency. you covered these events for "the "washington post" and wrote "all the president's men." give us a brief snapshot of what was watergate. >> it is great to start with an easy one. if you look at it broadly, it was an effort to destroy the process by which presidents are nominated to run in the political parties and are elected. it was not just the watergate burglary, it was espionage, sabotage operations. if you look into enough of the tapes or read transcripts, it is clear t

about 77 days aside the over 20 days average to an average of 77 days with confirmation as long as robert bork so it was a fairly dramatic change. i wish to use the numbers before the circuit and district court nominees through the end of the boxes first term last year 2012. esthetic you can see the square is for district court in the you can see by congress how they balance around for most of the time going up above 100 days for both in 1987 when the democrats took control of the senate went up during clinton then enter bush the circuit court nominations soared well over 500 days during that period of time with a gradual upward trend. one thing to mention his basion lot of discussion in the press about the confirmation rates much of that is long if you look at articles of "the new york times" or "usa today" but they will pick nominations like november or december last year a lot of those can be greatly affected when the president makes his nomination as the president tends to make them relatively vague in a congressional term. as late as september even. there is no way somebody will get confi

[laughter] >> another question, robert bork was vilified by many for doing the deed of firing cox. he in you both believed bork was in a different moral position, and encouraged him to carry out nixon's order. bob bork's son is here. can you tell us, is that accurate? did you encourage bob? >> it is accurate. he had not been confirmed when this was going on. it was much earlier in the trouble. it didn't come up. he was the third one in the written chain of command in the white house to carry out orders of the kind we were going to receive. after him there was nobody. the president could have appointed anybody to take that role. we told bob that if he could see it within his conscience do so, we would state that he was in a different condition than we were, and we would support his decision. which we did. >> the machinery of government has to continue. >> the institution of the department was in trouble. it was shaken to the foundation by what had happened. there were fbi agents surrounding both of our offices. they surrounded the special prosecutor's office. the institutions of gov

and we weren't surprised at that result in the sg's office where robert bork's father served with such distinction. at the conclusion of that argument, i said hello to one of the columnists who's kind of a curmudgeonly figure, james j. kilpatrick. and kilpo indicated he was going to be writing, he didn't come to the court, but every now and then would show up. and the opinion piece that he wrote, the richmond times-dispatch syndicated columnist, was every american should have seen that argument. it's not that i was so good. i clearly wasn't. my worthy opponent was brilliant. he was an absolutely great appellate lawyer. but it was not the advocates, it was the entire process and especially the justices' engagement through their questions, sometimes reflections. and it was a very poignant argument. john paul stevens, who many would categorize during his great service as an unabashed liberal voted in favor of the government in that case, that the flag was unique. that's when i changed my mind, after i read kilpo's column that every american should have seen that argument, because i knew h

. >> nixon ended up summoning his solicitor general, a right wing former yale law professor, robert borkattorney general and carried out the president's order to fire cox. the saturday night massacre represented a traumatic suspenseful and unprecedented constitutional crisis. it also became a critical turning point in the watergate story, the moment that nixon lost the country, the moment his beloved silent majority turned on him, the moment that made impeachment proceedings and nixon's resignation inevitable, the most his fate as the most notorious president was sealed. watergate set a very high standard for presidential scandals and scandals in general. that hasn't stopped the media and the political world from conjuring its memory every time there is so much as a whiff of a possibility of scandal in the air. which explains that wikipedia page about scandals with the gate suffix. we always hear the scandal of the moment in washington is as bad as watergate or worse than watergate. you heard it a million times. has anything that happened in the four decades since then actually risen to