As not to cloud one post with too many facts for you, I'll also quote the more of the passage from your rip and paste....
And the most important part------
The second phenomenon of overriding importance -- one closely related to the first -- is that the American people expect and demand that the Supreme Court will be independent of the political branches of government
And for your Nixon example, here's the story on the rejected nominees--
When Abe Fortas resigned in 1969, Nixon nominated Clement Haynsworth, a Southern jurist. His nomination was rejected by the Senate by a vote of 45-55 on November 21, 1969.
Haynsworth was nominated to the Supreme Court on August 21, 1969 by President Richard Nixon to replace Abe Fortas on the court. Haynsworth was opposed by Democrats, Liberal Republicans, and the NAACP and he was alleged to have made court decisions favoring segregation and decisions on subjects where he had a financial interest.
And just who voted against Haynsworth: 17 Republican senators -- including most of the GOP leadership -- joined in opposing Haynsworth's nomination.
In response, Nixon nominated G. Harrold Carswell, a Southerner with a history of supporting segregation. The Senate rejected his nomination 45 to 51 on April 8, 1970.
Carswell was praised by Senators such as Richard Russell; he was criticized for the high reversal rate (58%) of his decisions that were later appealed, and by civil-rights advocates for his judicial record and for vocally supporting White supremacy in 1948 while running for office in Georgia.
Of course how could he loose with endorsements such as this:
In a famous speech in Carswell's defense, Republican Sen. Roman Hruska of Nebraska argued: "Even if he is mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers, and they are entitled to a little representation, aren't they? We can't have all Brandeises and Cardozos and Frankfurters and stuff like that."
This is the best part Rip:
!!Carswell was arrested and convicted of battery, in 1976, for advances he made to an undercover police officer in a Florida men's room;some claim him as the first homosexual or bisexual nominated to the Supreme Court.
Now onto Bork:
Bork lost confirmation by a Senate vote of 42 to 58, largely because Bork had written about his views on many controversial constitutional issues, but perhaps also because of his role in the Saturday Night Massacre
The "Saturday night massacre" (October 20, 1973) was the term given by political commentators to U.S. President Richard Nixon's executive dismissal of independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox, and the forced resignations of Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus during the controversial and drawn-out Watergate scandal.
Nixon then contacted the Solicitor General, Robert Bork, and ordered him as acting head of the Justice Department to fire Cox. Richardson and Ruckelshaus had both personally assured the congressional committee overseeing the special prosecutor investigation that they would not interfere – Bork had made no such assurance to the committee.
Congress was infuriated by the act, which was seen as a gross abuse of Presidential power. In the days that followed, numerous bills of impeachment against the President were introduced in Congress. Nixon defended his actions in a famous press conference on November 17, 1973, in which he said,
"...in all of my years of public life, I have never obstructed justice. And I think, too, that I can say that in my years of public life that [sic] I've welcomed this kind of examination, because people have got to know whether or not their President's a crook. Well, I'm not a crook!"
Dang, those stupid facts again!!
