Since President Ronald Reagan nominated Judge Robert Bork to replace Justice Lewis Powell on the Supreme Court in 1987, the Democrats have followed a policy of harshness and ruthlessness in going after Republican Supreme Court nominees.

The assault on Bork – a scholarly and widely respected conservative member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit – was so vicious and underhanded that the process of personal destruction came to be known as “borking.” In fact, the savaging of Judge Bork was so infamous the Oxford English Dictionary added the verb “bork” as U.S. political slang: "[To] obstruct (someone, especially a candidate for public office) by systematically defaming or vilifying them."

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee while Bork was being slandered was Joe Biden. A report was issued known as the Biden Report, and Bork later said every word in it was false.