I don’t buy the ‘tricked’ argument at all.
But still, he is a liberal who was named by a Republican post-Reagan.
I also don’t see how Will can both claim that Kennedy is a conservative and not somehow have a secure conservative majority as it is. Answer: Kennedy’s a moderate and so we’ve a swing court that leans a tad conservative.
That is true, but it’s more complicated than that. Many call Sandra Day O’Connor a mushy moderate, but that overstates her alleged liberalism. It’s true that her record on human life and affirmative action was dissapointing, but she was great on property rights. Anthony Kennedy is pretty good though not stellar on human life issues, but he’s more trusting of government on property rights.
One of the reasons that George W. Bush choise John Roberts as Chief Justice is that Anthony Kennedy was known to think highly of him.