Justice Kennedy’s PressMike Rappaport

It is often said that Justice Kennedy likes being the swing justice, as did Justice O’Connor, becauase, in addition to giving him power, it gets him press.  And that seems right to me.  But you wonder about how he feels about some of the articles.  Tom mentions this article by Linda Greenhouse on Kennedy, but to me he comes across as a lightweight who is manipulated by the masterful Justice Stevens (who by the way comes across as a little unprincipled):

It takes four votes to accept a case, and three members of the liberal bloc Justices Stephen G. Breyer, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg said at the time [of an earlier petition for cert] that they wanted to hear these cases. Notably absent from that group was Justice John Paul Stevens,who wrote the majority opinions for the court in 2004 and 2006 thatupheld the detainees claims to a modicum of judicial process.

Insteadof giving his vote to the three, Justice Stevens joined Justice Kennedyin a one-paragraph statement respecting the denial. It was appropriate to deny the appeals at this point, they said, because thedetainees had not yet availed themselves of the appeal procedureprovided by the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005. The court s doorremained open for the future, they hinted.

Since Justice Stevenshad the power at that moment to cast a fourth vote for immediatereview, he clearly had something else in mind by joining JusticeKennedy instead. The most plausible explanation is that this cannytactician and strategist, who had managed to win Justice Kennedy s votefor his two earlier Guantánamo opinions, knew better than to risklosing that support by pushing his colleague too far, too fast. Therewas no point in granting a case to which Justice Kennedy was not yetready to give favorable consideration.