Advise and Dissent

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"The liberals are wreaking havoc on the whole confirmation process," says Dan Casey of the American Conservative Union. "We are reluctant to engage in that." Instead, conservative groups have concentrated on mailings to their members. One statement charges that the anti-Bork movement "is a consortium of extremists, kooks, weirdos and America-haters -- the likes of which we have not seen since Jane Fonda held fund-raising dinners for George McGovern."

Unlike the right-wing activists who hail Bork for his ideological bent, Reagan and his men have gone out of their way to present the nominee as a mainstream jurist who decides cases with a completely open mind. "If you want someone with Justice Powell's detachment and statesmanship," said the President in a speech last July, "you can't do better than Judge Bork." The White House distributed to key Senators a 70-page briefing book outlining many of Bork's rulings and proclaiming that the judge was a model practitioner of "judicial restraint."

The staff of the Democratic-led Judiciary Committee promptly responded with a 72-page study of its own. It criticized the White House report for its "major inaccuracies" and "omissions" regarding Bork's record. Citing scores of Bork's articles and decisions, the report defines the nominee as an "extremely conservative activist," not a "genuine apostle of judicial moderation and restraint." The battle of the briefing books continued through the weekend: the Justice Department released a 240-page rebuttal of the half- dozen anti-Bork reports produced over the past two months.

Some Reagan supporters fault the President for trying to depict Bork as a centrist. Bruce Fein, a conservative legal scholar and former Reagan Justice Department official, gives the Administration's strategy an A-plus for "ineptitude and cuteness." Contends Fein: "It's counterproductive because in the long run jurisprudence won't change unless the President says, 'I campaigned because we wanted to change the Supreme Court, and Bork represents the kind of judge who will correct the errors the court has made in the past.' " Fein believes the attempt to portray Bork as a moderate will collapse at the hearings as soon as a Judiciary Committee member says to the judge, "The White House says you're just like Powell. Do you agree?" Says Fein: "He can't possibly say yes."

In addition to Biden and Kennedy, criticism of Bork in the Judiciary Committee is likely to come from Paul Simon, who, like Biden, is a candidate for the Democratic nomination. Bork's most fervent support will come from two conservative Republicans, South Carolina's Strom Thurmond and Utah's Orrin Hatch. Later, when the issue reaches the Senate floor, Minority Leader Robert Dole will head the fight on Bork's behalf. The three key swing votes on the committee: Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Democrats Howell Heflin of Alabama and Dennis DeConcini of Arizona. Last week DeConcini still did not know what to make of the controversial jurist. "I have read so much," he told TIME. "Sometimes he sounds like a moderate. At other times he seems -- well, his approach seems so odd. I think he and the nation are both entitled to a full hearing and explanation."