THE ART OF TESTIFYING.(judicial nominees)

On the second day of David Souter's appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, in September, 1990, Gordon Humphrey, a Republican senator from New Hampshire, with something of the manner of a boarding-school headmaster in a satiric novel, asked the nominee, "Do you remember the old television program 'Queen for a Day'?"

"Well, it wasn't something that I spent much of my youth watching," Souter said, "but I've heard the term."

Humphrey fussed with papers and went on, "Yes, well, going back to the days of black-and-white TV, let's play 'Senator for a Day.' "

"I still have a black-and-white TV," Souter put in.

"I don't doubt it," Humphrey said, and continued:

I hope you don't watch it much. My theory is that nothing would do more good for this country than for everyone to smash his television set . . . because people would begin--especially parents and children--would begin talking and children would begin doing their homework instead of watching--having their minds filled with rubbish every evening from our wonderful networks.

Humphrey collected himself and went on to propose that Souter put himself in the shoes of a senator interrogating a Supreme Court nominee and asked him what he would be most concerned about. He added that he was asking not so much for his own benefit as for that of "the young people who are tuned in--"