From New York Public Radio, this is the podcast of On The Media.

On The Media is produced by WNYC and heard across America on NPR stations.

Visit On Themedia.org to find your local public radio station.

This podcast is made possible by WNYC and its listeners.

Please help support this free service by becoming a member at WNYC.org.

From WNYC.org. From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media.

I'm Brooke Gladstone.

And I'm Bob Garfield.

This week, all eyes were on John Roberts Jr.

The U.S. appellate judge nominated to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court.

With only two years' experience as a judge under his robe, Roberts has offered few public clues as to his judicial philosophy.

But we can assume he met President Bush's central requirement, as stated during campaign 2000.

I don't believe in liberal activist judges. I believe in strict constructionists. And those

are the kind of judges I will appoint. Yes, we've learned all week the nominee is a constructionist.

But not an activist or an extremist or a Methodist or any number of ists, the media were awash

in such terms, including traditionalist, originalist, and pragmatist.

But what do they mean, and more importantly, do they tell us what we need to know?

To help walk us through the list of ists, we consulted Professor Stanley Fish of the law school

faculty at the Florida International University. We began by asking about the president's bid

specifications for a strict constructionist. Many people who use strict constructionism

mean textualism, by which they mean sticking to the meanings that are

encoded in the text and not going beyond them.

...