One by one, the nine Supreme Court justices paid tribute to David Souter following his passing last week. They praised his decency, his old-fashioned ways, his generosity to law clerks and his deep love of New Hampshire.
Yet something important was missing from the statements by the six Republicans and three Democrats who currently hold those seats. No one praised David Souter’s political independence, or his freedom from any specific ideology, political, constitutional or otherwise. The respect for his old-fashioned ways referred not to the unblinkered honesty he brought to the law but to his asceticism and simplicity – his devotion to books, New England, the yogurt and apple he ate for lunch every day, core and all.
