>> back then, confirmation hearings were usually brief and tame affairs. >> you were a competent judge, capable of being a functioning justice, you would get confirmed. >> the bork confirmation changed that. >> judge bork should be immediately confirmed. >> the right thought bork would be a shoo-in. he was a distinguished scholar and an appeals court judge. >> so well respected and thought of in the legal academy, there would be no problem getting him confirmed. >> the left saw him as a far right extremist. >> liberals were appropriately worried about what robert bork would do if he got on the supreme court. >> among his views, he was against the 1964 civil rights act. >> blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters. >> ted kennedy led the charge against bork. >> robert bork's america is a land in which women would be forced into back alley abortions. >> the women's groups frankly are afraid. they're afraid of you. >> one incendiary example of why, bork had upheld a mandatory