President Bush, on his way to the G-8 Summit, said that views like abortion or gay marriage will not serve as litmus tests for selecting a Supreme Court nominee. “I’ll pick people who, one, can do the job, and people who are honest, people who are bright and people who will strictly interpret the Constitution and not use the bench to legislate from,” Bush said. “I will take my time,” Bush said. “I will be thorough in my investigation.” The president hopes to see a new justice in place by the time the court begins its new term in October.

Robert ments on interpreting the Constitution:

If there is an “actual” Constitution it can only be the set of principles those who made the Constitution law understood themselves to be ordaining.

The idea that the Constitution should be interpreted according to that original understanding has been made to seem an extreme position. That is convenient for those who want results democracy will not give them, but the truth is that violation of original understanding ought to be the extreme position. Would it be legitimate for a judge in the United Kingdom, which has no parable to ours, to strike down an act of Parliament on the ground he did not like it? Obviously not. But a U.S. judge who goes beyond the Constitution behaves like the hypothetical U.K. judge.

Democratic theory requires that a judge set the majority’s desires at naught only in accordance with a superior law-in our case, the written Constitution. A judge who departs from the Constitution, as the majority did in the five cases mentioned, is applying no law other than his will. Our country is being radically altered, step by step, by Justices who are not following any law.