"Alito Says He'd Emulate O'Connor's Style."

So reads an AP headline, based on this statement: "I would try to emulate her dedication and her integrity and her dedication to the case-by-case process of adjudication." Does that mean anything or is it just routine polite acknowledgment? It could be read as a rejection of decisionmaking in the form of stating crisp rules at a high level of generality: "She has been known for her meticulous devotion to the facts of the particular cases that come before her and her belief that each case needs to be decided on its complex facts." Does he plan to emulate that or can we perceive that he sees that as a problem he will solve?

UPDATE: The NYT has a quite different headline: "Alito Resists Making Comparisons to O'Connor."