And now you're being obtuse. "A fine candidate" means exactly that. It's faint praise.
He didn't say "she's a great justice," "I agree with her rulings," "I agree with her approach to interpreting the Constitution," or anything else that might be construed as an endorsement. "A fine candidate" here means someone who is well-qualified. And she was well-qualified...Phil Gramm and Strom Thurmond voted for her.
Words do have meaning. You're just having a hard time understanding the meaning of these particular words.
Take a minute to contemplate the absurdity of what you just said. I am being obtuse for not accepting that saying someone is a "fine candidate" doesn't mean they are a fine candidate.
Later. I don't deal with people who accept the wholesale destruction of the meaning of words. That, in a nutshell, is what is wrong with politics nowadays - words have no core meaning, and politicans have no core values, so they change the meaning of words to suit whatever agenda they seek to pursue below the surface.
If we cannot evaluate a candidate from what they say, using the dictionary meaning of words, a candidate can therefore say anything and it has no meaning. That is the path of tyranny.