Politics & Power Quote by Bennie Thompson

A Supreme Court pick gets framed here not as a partisan trophy, but as a temperament test. Bennie Thompson is doing something shrewdly political with the language of apolitics: he defines legitimacy in terms that sound neutral ("temperament", "wisdom", "fairly") while quietly drawing a boundary around what should count as an acceptable judicial philosophy.

The phrase "interpret the law" signals respect for the Court's technical role, but it also tiptoes around the loaded fight between "interpreting" and "making" law. Thompson avoids buzzwords like "originalism" or "activism" and instead smuggles in a standard: interpretation is only legitimate if it protects "individual rights". That's not a procedural benchmark; it's a values claim. In a few words, he places civil liberties, voting rights, and equal protection at the center of the job description, implicitly contrasting them with judges who elevate deference to power, tradition, or partisan outcomes.

"Put aside any political agenda" is the most telling line because it acknowledges what everyone knows and everyone pretends not to: nominees arrive with ideological priors, networks, and patrons. Thompson's intent is to make those priors disqualifying when they track a party project rather than a rights-protecting record. The subtext is aimed at a polarized confirmation environment where "qualified" has become shorthand for "reliably ours". He's trying to reclaim the moral high ground by reframing confirmation as a referendum on judicial character, while also staking a clear policy demand: a justice who is predictably protective of individual rights, even when the politics turn ugly.