I know it’s a bit of a cliché, but the more you think about it the more it really is true that what happened to Bork was one of the most significant and far-reaching political-legal events of the second half of the 20th century. Only a handful of Congress-centered events can be considered more important. Hiss v Chambers, The Army-McCarthy hearings, Watergate hearing and perhaps the Clinton impeachment are the only examples of more important events since World War II that leap to mind (I say “perhaps” on the impeachment because it’s still so recent and it’s still hard to see what its lasting effect was).