Cite as: 510 U. S. 540 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
608 (CA1 1927); Ferrari v. United States, 169 F. 2d 353, 355 (CA9 1948). And several cases have cited the absence of that word as a reason for excluding that restriction from § 455(a), see United States v. Coven, supra, at 168, cert. denied, 456 U. S. 916 (1982); Panzardi-Alvarez v. United States, 879 F. 2d 975, 983-984, and n. 6 (CA1), cert. denied, 493 U. S. 1082 (1989). It seems to us, however, that that mistakes the basis for the "extrajudicial source" doctrine. Petitioners' suggestion that we relied upon the word "personal" in our Grinnell opinion is simply in error. The only reason Grin-nell gave for its "extrajudicial source" holding was citation of our opinion almost half a century earlier in Berger v. United States, 255 U. S. 22 (1921). But that case, and the case which it in turn cited, Ex parte American Steel Barrel Co., 230 U. S. 35 (1913), relied not upon the word "personal" in § 144, but upon its provision requiring the recusal affidavit to be filed 10 days before the beginning of the court term. That requirement was the reason we found it obvious in Berger that the affidavit "must be based upon facts antedating the trial, not those occurring during the trial," 255 U. S., at 34; and the reason we said in American Steel Barrel that the recusal statute "was never intended to enable a discontented litigant to oust a judge because of adverse rulings made, . . . but to prevent his future action in the pending cause," 230 U. S., at 44.
In our view, the proper (though unexpressed) rationale for Grinnell, and the basis of the modern "extrajudicial source" doctrine, is not the statutory term "personal"—for several reasons. First and foremost, that explanation is simply not the semantic success it pretends to be. Bias and prejudice seem to us not divided into the "personal" kind, which is offensive, and the official kind, which is perfectly all right. As generally used, these are pejorative terms, describing dispositions that are never appropriate. It is common to speak of "personal bias" or "personal prejudice" without meaning the adjective to do anything except emphasize the
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