It should surprise no one that Justice David Souter chose to exit the U.S. Supreme Court at the unusually young age of 69. It is yet another example of Souter's independent mind, and it is precisely this characteristic which President Barack Obama should seek in his nominee.

For if one thing characterized Souter's term on the court, it was that independent mind. One look at his New Hampshire home with its peeling brown paint and unmanicured yard is almost enough to explain the man. He is a Yankee in the traditional sense and was comfortable living among people not awed by celebrity and not impressed by material goods. He is a classic conservative, as compared to the modern movement that styles itself conservative.

In other words, he tended to vote in line with legal precedent to maintain what we have, but that also meant he upheld decisions which modern conservatives don't like. One was the landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade. In another case he joined the court majority to strike down Texas laws which forbade homosexuals from engaging in private sexual relations, and he dissented from the majority opinion in Bush v. Gore which shut down the vote recount in Florida following the 2000 presidential election. "There is no justification for denying the state the opportunity to try to count all disputed ballots now," he wrote.

Such decisions made Souter the bane of modern conservatives who wanted him to hew to the ideology of President George H.W. Bush, who had nominated him for the court. That reminded people of the late Chief Justice Earl Warren, appointed by a Republican president but leader of the court when it required police to inform arrested people of their legal rights and when it mandated legal representation in cases where life or liberty is at stake. One can argue that these "liberal" decisions were also conservative because they reinforced basic constitutional law and individual liberty, and restricted the power of the state. Make no mistake, when some modern conservatives inveigh against "legislating from the bench," they are often asking not for an impartial judiciary but for one aligned with their beliefs.

Souter's strength as a jurist was that he resisted partisan ideology, looked at each case as it came, and voted to maintain the liberties we have rather than reduce them in the way conservatives wish or radically change them in the way liberals desire. That is classic conservatism, and again it is reflected in his rural New Hampshire background where change comes, but comes slowly and only after due deliberation.

While speculation among the excitable political class has focused on female candidates with prestigious legal résumés (the sole female justice, 76-year-old Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is undergoing treatment for cancer), Obama should first seek a Souter-like practicality. We need someone on the court who can see past ideological passions, balance interests, understand that fads come and go on the political winds, protect basic liberties and knows that controversial issues are better settled through public debate and legislative action - even if that doesn't happen quickly or in the way we want.