I’m not thrilled with this bit of his April 2003 testimony (on page 69 of the pdf, 57 of the printed version): “Well, Senator, I don’t know if that’s a flaw for a judicial nominee or not, not to have a comprehensive philosophy about constitutional interpretation, to be able to say, ‘I’m an originalist, I’m a textualist, I’m a literalist or this or that.’ I just don’t feel comfortable with any of those particular labels. One reason is that as the Constitution uses the term ‘inferior court judge,’ I’ll be bound to follow the Supreme Court precedent regardless of what type of constructionist I, personally, might be.

“The other thing is, in my review over the years and looking at Supreme Court constitutional decisions, I don’t necessarily think that it’s the best approach to have an all-encompassing philosophy. The Supreme Court certainly doesn’t” (emphasis added).

Let’s assume that he’s suggesting that terms such as textualist are inappropriate to describe inferior-court judges who have to apply Supreme Court precedents, whatever the methodology those precedents used; I think that is a possible interpretation of his remarks. But the comment I italicized seems to leave open the possibility that he would be a practitioner of the kind of relatively unprincipled judging that so many conservatives, and some liberals, rightly found troubling about Justice O’Connor. I hope senators explore this question in the hearings.