Don’t fall for former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s newly published call for “pragmatism” rather than “originalism” or “textualism” as the best interpretive method. What Breyer’s suggestion amounts to is the anti-democratic idea that judges should be free to twist what the law says to suit their own prejudices — that is, they should be above the law rather than servants of it.

Breyer has been on a spirited publicity tour for his new book Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism. Alas, his arguments amount to the same old mush.