It's been a constant back-and-forth cycle of mutual escalation that has turned more poisonous than either party initially expected. Democrats treated Robert Bork so poorly that "bork" is now a verb for slandering someone beyond repair. I studied under and completed a research project with a professor who was one of Senator Ted Kennedy's chief speechwriters. I was never particularly ideological so, politics aside, I always enjoyed his class and admired his verbal acumen and depth of experience. I eventually realized he helped craft Kennedy's 1987 speech "Robert Bork's America" that maligned the judge on national television, and I simply couldn't respect him anymore, perhaps as a professor but not as a person.

McConnell's actions were definitely unprecedented, but they were mostly a culmination of that decades-long cycle of escalation. Oh, and I'm glad someone else is mentioning Miguel Estrada. There's a lot of collective amnesia when it comes to his situation.