Time & Perspective Quote by Robert Bork

Bork frames his moral calculus in the language of reputation, not righteousness, and that choice is doing quiet, strategic work. “Perceived” is the tell: he’s less interested in proving purity than in controlling the story history will tell about his autonomy. In a city where motives are currency, he’s arguing that even an honorable act can be disfigured by the suspicion of self-preservation. The anxiety isn’t just about what he did, but what it will look like when filtered through partisan lenses and institutional gossip.

The line also captures a familiar Washington bargain: resignation as virtue signal versus staying as complicity. Bork presents the fork as almost existential: either exit to protect integrity, or act and risk being branded a careerist errand-runner. The pivot - “I have had some time to think about it since” - is a retrospective self-cross-examination, the kind that acknowledges moral ambiguity without surrendering to it. Then comes the blunt closure: “I think I did the right thing.” Not “the lawful thing,” not “the necessary thing,” but “the right thing,” a claim that seeks to move his choice from procedure to ethics.

Context matters: Bork is inseparable from the “Saturday Night Massacre,” when, as Solicitor General in 1973, he carried out Nixon’s order to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox after others resigned rather than comply. The subtext is a defense against the enduring critique that he chose obedience over principle. He’s asserting a different narrative: that remaining inside the system can be an act of responsibility, even when it makes you look like the villain.