Veteran Washington superlobbyist Tom Korologos, now ambassador to Belgium, had some pithy words of wisdom for past Republican Supreme Court nominees whom he helped shepherd through the process: "Your role is that of a bridegroom at a wedding. Stay out of the way, be on time, and keep your mouth shut."

But one of those nominees, Judge Robert Bork, was in no position to keep his mouth shut as he went down to a historic defeat in 1987. Now, with partisan bitterness at a new zenith reminiscent of the atmosphere surrounding the Bork donnybrook, even a nominee who does not have a controversial paper trail, and who tries to keep his or her mouth shut, could be in for a harrowing ordeal. The Republican gains in the Senate would be a great help to anyone President Bush named. But the path to confirmation would still be littered with political and ethical traps.

Liberal interest groups and Senate Democrats have copious dossiers on the public and private lives of all those thought to be on Bush’s short list. Once announced, any strongly conservative nominee will be greeted with blizzards of alarmist press releases and (probably) newspaper and TV ads depicting him or her as a right-wing extremist. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., set the standard for demonizing nominees the day President Reagan announced Bork’s nomination: "Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution," and so on.

Then comes the hard part: long questionnaires fishing for controversial views, ethical problems, or evasive answers that could be used to discredit the nominee. Courtesy calls to individual senators accustomed to having their egos stroked. And finally, the all-important testimony to the Judiciary Committee, with critics firing spitballs, supporters pitching softballs, and senators of all stripes pushing the nominee to disclose his or her views on abortion rights, privacy rights, gay rights, disability rights, states’ rights, property rights, affirmative action, school prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance, the death penalty, international law, tax money for religious schools, assisted suicide, and more.

Even the nominee’s religion and grooming habits can be grist for opponents, as Bork learned when Sen. Howell Heflin, D-Ala., sought to sell his "no" vote to his conservative constituents by suggesting that Bork might be "an agnostic or an unbeliever." Heflin also made innuendoes about Bork’s widely lampooned, somewhat scraggly beard; worried Republican senators had urged the White House to shave it off before the hearings.

If past practice is any guide, administration officials and other confirmation-team coaches will show videotapes of past hits and flops to any Bush nominees for the Supreme Court. "We were brilliant," recalls a participant in the coaching of then-Judge David Souter in 1990. "We showed him the Bork tapes and said, ‘Don’t do that.’ Then we showed him the [Anthony] Kennedy tapes and said, ‘Do that.’ "

Souter was such a good learner that tapes of his own confirmation testimony were later played as a model of smooth sailing for Stephen Breyer, a Clinton nominee, with the Bork tapes once again serving as the cautionary example of what would not sell in the circus-like political arena that the confirmation process had become.

While Bork, a hero to conservatives, went down 42-58, Kennedy was confirmed a few months later by a 97-0 count, mainly because he seemed (and was) far more moderate politically and also because Democrats had no stomach for another Armageddon. But the contrasting confirmation-hearing performances of Bork and Kennedy also help explain the dramatically different outcomes.

Korologos, and then-White House Counsel A.B. Culvahouse, as well as others who fought for the nomination, express nothing but admiration for Bork’s intellect, integrity, and wry sense of humor. But they say that political savvy was not the nominee’s strong suit. A former Yale law professor and solicitor general accustomed to arguing fine points of law, Bork came across as too smart. He was abstract, austere, intellectual, and more fixated on the Framers’ original intent — as he believed judges should be — than on the human condition. "He was the Einstein of the law," recalls Korologos, who worked pro bono on the Bork confirmation team. "He was smarter than all of them, and he came across that way. He didn’t come across as a schmoozer in any of the courtesy calls, and even in the hearing, he just came across too stiff. And they branded him wrongly as a racist, and [Senator] Kennedy got after him, and it scared people."

Korologos and Culvahouse alike confess to feelings of guilt for having deferred too much to this "intellectual giant," as Culvahouse calls him, and for failing to insist that Bork submit to the rigorous preparation for political combat that has become routine for other nominees. "It was my single greatest regret in the White House," Culvahouse says.

"There was a first ‘murder board,’ or mock hearing, that occurred at the Old Executive Office Building," he recalls, "and it seemed like every smart lawyer in the administration fought his way into the room…. It was a disaster — just too many lawyers showing off, trying to convince Bob Bork that they were almost as smart as he was…. No one was in charge. There was a little bit of sharp elbows between Justice and the White House, and everybody wanted to be involved…. And at the end of that, he found it very distasteful and not productive, and decided that his preparation was going to be much more private," Culvahouse says.

"What we should have done from day one is say, ‘This is not preparation for a Supreme Court argument. This is preparation for a political knife fight. And it is very different. It’s an art form that you don’t understand — there’s no reason that you should — and we do, and you need to work with us on this, because it is as much theater as substance.’ "

After that first meeting, where "people were shouting and nothing was getting done," Bork recalls, he huddled with six or seven close advisers more expert at law than at politics, instead of getting White House political coaching. The advisers included the fervently conservative William Bradford Reynolds, then a top Justice Department official, and superlawyer Lloyd Cutler, Bork’s leading Democratic supporter. This inner circle spent many hours going over Bork’s writings and the questions that could fairly be raised about them. But fair questions were not the ones for which Bork most needed to be prepared.

Recalls Korologos, a nonlawyer who sat in on meetings of this group in Bork’s kitchen and elsewhere: "All these characters would sit around and go, you know, the Wainwright case and the Cohen case and the Oomph case. Pretty soon, my eyes would glaze over at this brilliance that was going on around me. What I should have done was grabbed those guys by the lapels, rammed them against the wall, and said, ‘OK, now shut up and listen to me. Here’s how we’re gonna do it. Here’s how you answer this. Here’s how you answer that. I’m not asking you to give a position, but your answers are too convoluted.’ … Bork scared us. He was so smart. He scared me, he scared [Reagan Chief of Staff] Howard Baker, he scared all of us into thinking that he was so good that he would be brilliant in the hearing. And that brilliance just didn’t come through. And it finally did us in."

‘An Idiotic Thing to Say’ Bork’s main confirmation problem was his very public paper trail of forceful attacks on decades of major Supreme Court precedents — not least Roe v. Wade — as illegitimate, "toxic detritus of non-originalism [that should be swept] out to sea," as he put it in a speech three months before his nomination. Trying to duck questions was not an option. "I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. I’d written too much," Bork told National Journal.

To the extent that Bork stuck by his prior statements, Democrats could paint him as an agent of radical change. To the extent that Bork tried to qualify or soften his paper trail, Democrats accused him of disingenuous "confirmation conversions." But as a political matter, the problem with Bork’s testimony was not disingenuousness. It was his extraordinary candor and his aversion to pandering. Time and time again, Bork flubbed opportunities presented by supportive Republicans such as Sens. Alan Simpson of Wyoming and Orrin Hatch of Utah. When Simpson asked why Bork wanted to be a Supreme Court justice — a predictable question that other nominees have knocked out of the park — Bork said nothing about protecting rights, nothing about advancing justice, nothing about helping the world’s victims. The gist of his response was, "It would be an intellectual feast." This, recalls one adviser, "was not the answer." Not when speaking to a television audience accustomed to politicians pandering to people’s emotions. Not when the professorial nominee’s only hope was to show some human feeling.

Asked to comment on this assessment, Bork says: "I don’t claim that I performed brilliantly in a political way. I did make some blunders, and that final answer about ‘the intellectual feast’ was an idiotic thing to say. But none of my advisers suggested that I change anything or behave more politically."

When another supporter lobbed a softball about judges’ responsibilities to protect society against criminals, Bork struck out. "I am not an expert on criminal law," said the nominee whom the White House was advertising as an expert on criminal law — and a tough-on-crime tiger, to boot. This, recalls Culvahouse, came at a time when "our polling was showing that’s where we could maybe get some traction going. It was just political malpractice."

Says Bork: "I could have gone back and expanded on the criminal-law business, but nobody said anything about it. And furthermore, criminal law shouldn’t be an ideological matter. I wasn’t going to go in with an attitude that I was out to go get those criminals."

Then there was the long debate about constitutional interpretation that Bork had with Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, a moderate Republican whose vote was thought to be up for grabs. (The same Specter will likely soon be chairman of the Judiciary Committee.) "He and Specter went round and round like two trains in the night," Korologos recalls. "Finally, I told him one time, ‘For heaven’s sake, would you stop arguing with Specter? Why don’t you just say, "That’s a fascinating point you have made. I hadn’t thought of it quite in those terms." ‘ " (Bork does not recall this advice.) When Specter’s long, long, non-question questions resumed, Bork strove mightily to seem fascinated — but "then he starts arguing with [Specter] again," Korologos recalls. Along the way, Bork lost Specter’s vote, killing whatever chance he still had.

Looking back on the battle, Bork says, "The fact is, I was the tipping point for that Court, and that was what shot everything up in the air. Everyone knew I would be the fifth vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. Indeed, I would have been the fifth vote.

"It’s true that I was unprepared for what you call a political knife fight, but so were all my advisers. They weren’t prepared for it, either. You really can’t overlook the effect of that political campaign [by opponents to paint Bork as a right-wing zealot]. Full-page ads, radio and television ads with Gregory Peck. There was no answer from my side at all. My wife and I called a meeting, and we explained that the other side was running a national political campaign."

The Borks wanted the White House to mount a counter-campaign, with Reagan going on national television to back his nominee. But White House officials, including the moderate Howard Baker and Culvahouse, nixed the idea. They doubted that Reagan could swing enough Senate votes to justify investing more political capital in a nominee whom Brad Reynolds and other conservatives at the Justice Department had fervently championed all along.

Bork still believes that "with a proper campaign [by the White House] and a little more savvy on my part, it could have been carried." Instead, "the one thing the White House did do after the hearing was try to get me to go on Barbara Walters with my wife to humanize myself. And I refused to do it, because I thought that was preposterous."

By contrast with Bork, Anthony Kennedy was an adept schmoozer when making courtesy calls and "smooth as he could be" when testifying, recalls one of his handlers. (It also helped that Kennedy’s long paper trail of opinions and speeches as a federal appellate judge was as bland as Bork’s was inflammatory.) The White House put Kennedy through prolonged mock hearings to prepare for every curveball that any Judiciary Committee member could ever throw. The first Bush administration used the same techniques for the nominations of David Souter in 1990 and Clarence Thomas in 1991, and the Clinton administration used them to help Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1993 and Breyer in 1994.

"The process forces the nominee to jump through hoops," Justice Thomas has recalled. "You’ve got to be bland. You’ve got to round the edges out…. You have to avoid showing passion…. In the hearing, I played by the rules. And playing by those rules, the country had never seen the real person. There is an inherent dishonesty in the system. It says, ‘Don’t be yourself.’ If you are yourself, like Bob Bork was, you’re dead."

Thomas — quoted in a 1994 book by his friend and patron, former Sen. John Danforth, R-Mo., about Thomas’s own circus-like confirmation hearings — said he had maintained "core honesty." Critics, on the other hand, accuse Thomas of lying repeatedly to conceal his views from the television audience — if not from senators familiar with his highly controversial paper trail — on the many big issues on which Thomas has turned out to be at least as conservative as BorkHow Far Should They Go? Be that as it may, nominees face ethical as well as political hazards when senators demand to know their views on issues that they could encounter on the Court. No senator is likely to ask anything as bald as, "Will you promise to overrule Roe v. Wade?" But in an era when the justices have the last word on a vast array of major national issues once thought to be the province of elected officials, senators are understandably eager to come as close as they can to learning a nominee’s probable votes on those issues. There is broad agreement among officials and ethicists that no judicial nominee should explicitly or implicitly promise to rule in a certain way on any specific issue that might come before his or her court. Such a promise would violate the nominee’s duty of impartiality to future litigants and thus would logically call for recusal in any cases that raise the issue. It would also do violence to the separation of powers by allowing the legislative branch to compromise the independence of the judiciary, says Boyden Gray, who was White House counsel during the first Bush administration.

There is much disagreement, however, about how far nominees properly can or should go in discussing broad questions of legal philosophy, such as the vague "right of privacy" on which the Court based Roe v. Wade. Such discussions can become specific enough to telegraph future votes. Both Ginsburg and Breyer, for example, assured Judiciary Committee Democrats that the Constitution includes a right to abortion. Some critics call those statements improper, even though they did little more than reaffirm what Ginsburg and Breyer had said long before their nominations.

One exponent of taking the Korologos mantra — "Keep your mouth shut" — as an ethical imperative is Laurence Silberman, a senior judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, on which he served with Bork and now-Justices Antonin Scalia, Thomas, and Ginsburg. During Scalia’s 1986 confirmation hearing, his friend Silberman counseled against expressing any view, even as to the correctness of Marbury v. Madison. That’s the 1803 decision establishing the power of judicial review — the seminal case in all of constitutional law. Once you start down the road of endorsing Marbury, Silberman advised Scalia, you are on the slippery slope toward pledging to vote for this or that position on currently controversial issues.

(Silberman, currently co-chair of Bush’s commission to assess U.S. intelligence failures on weapons proliferation, disclosed this episode in a 2002 speech. He declines to elaborate now.)

Many Democrats, on the other hand, say the Senate should demand candid testimony from nominees about their legal philosophies and should vote down those who balk. And the Bork precedent of wide-ranging, candid discussion of the big issues has made it harder for subsequent nominees to adopt the Silberman-Scalia approach.

Democrats also cite a 2002 majority opinion by the same Scalia striking down a state Supreme Court ethical canon. In Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, Scalia said the tenet barring any candidate for an elective judgeship from "announcing his or her views on disputed legal or political issues" ran contrary to the First Amendment. As Scalia explained, "A judge’s lack of predisposition regarding the relevant legal issues in a case has never been thought a necessary component of equal justice…. It is virtually impossible to find a judge who does not have preconceptions about the law [and] pretending otherwise by attempting to preserve the ‘appearance’ of that type of impartiality can hardly be a compelling state interest."

Legal ethics expert Stephen Gillers, of the New York University Law School, sees the Scalia opinion as helping establish that senators "have a right to know the nominees’ views on the big issues of the day at an appropriate level of generality, short of committing to any position on any issue or pending or possible case."

As in many other fields, opinions on the ethical issues here tend to be shaped by expediency. Nominees sometimes invoke vague notions of propriety as a basis for refusing to discuss views that they would gladly disclose if that seemed the best way to win confirmation.

Of course, not every potential Supreme Court nominee wants the job badly enough to put himself or herself through the ordeal of confirmation. Some don’t want the job at all. "I would rather talk to the damned fools than listen to them," a Supreme Court litigator named John Johnson said more than a century ago, to explain his rejection of President Cleveland’s offer of a nomination.

"Bill Clinton’s great dream that he would have periodically," recalls Clinton Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, "was that he would put Mario Cuomo on the Court, and that Cuomo would engage with Scalia, and that with two minds like that on the Court, the debate would be for the ages." But Cuomo wasn’t interested. Why not? He explained it this way in a 1993 newspaper interview: "They put you in this big room. They slam this mahogany door shut. And you’re dead. You’re entombed…. You can’t go on television."