Jonah Goldberg writes, "If you think American politics have gotten nastier, crueler, and more symbolic over the last 20 years, blame Ted Kennedy":

By today’s standards, the slimy insinuations that Bork was a racist seem almost quaint. The investigations of his private life — Senate staffers pored over his video rental records in hope of finding something prurient — pale to the deepwater dredging of private lives today.

But that’s how precedents work. Small violations of principle tear the social fabric and the breach is pulled ever wider as more people march through the opening.