ABSTRACT
Robert Bork embraces the idea that the Constitution is “our civil religion,” and, he never tires of repeating, originalism is its “orthodoxy.” Bork’s invocation of the Joint Chiefs proves only that he is almost as fond of military as of religious imagery. Bork fails to produce convincing reasons why society should want its judges to adopt originalism as their interpretive methodology in constitutional cases. Bork is well aware of the practical impediments to amending the Constitution, but he is unwilling to draw the inference that flexible interpretation is therefore necessary to prevent constitutional obsolescence. As a public man, and one who quite properly tried to conciliate critics and reassure doubters at his confirmation hearing, Bork may have disabled himself from pressing originalism to its logical extreme; and perhaps the exigencies of writing a popular book preclude complete intellectual rigor.
