UPDATE: Anthony Kennedy announces he's retiring from the Supreme Court.
Once again, all eyes will be on the Supreme Court Wednesday morning to see if Justice Anthony Kennedy will retire. This is becoming an annual ritual of spring and summer as liberals in the press beg the swing vote not to give Donald Trump a chance to nominate his replacement. On April 29, 2018, The New York Times editorial pleaded: “How can we put this the right way? Please don’t go.”
The Times editorial opted for flattery, praising the importance of Kennedy:
Sitting between the four liberal justices and the four conservatives, you are the most powerful member of the most powerful court in the country, as you have been for at least a decade. Your vote, more than that of any other justice, has delivered landmark legal victories for Americans of all political stripes, from gays and lesbians seeking equal rights to African-American college students seeking a better education to deep-pocketed corporations seeking to spend more money influencing politics.
Then, the so-called paper of record lectured as to what a Supreme Court judge should consider when thinking of retirement: “There are two ways to think about this decision: The safeguarding of your legacy, and the safeguarding of the Supreme Court itself.”
The same fretting happened in 2017 as journalists worried about Kennedy retiring. MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace on June 26, 2017 warned: “It terrifies people in the middle and on the left because it has the potential to swing the Court in a different direction.”
She feared that Kennedy’s retirement “would allow President Trump to make the Court solidly conservative for decades” ABC’s Terry Moran on Good Morning America sounded the alarm: “If he does retire, and there are signs that he will, it’ll start a war for this Court like nothing this town has seen in decades.”
Somehow, when Barack Obama was president, liberal reporters didn't seem quite as worried about Kennedy's retirement. (For more on the 2017 non-retirement, see this post from the MRC's Kyle Drennen.)
Anthony Kennedy is retiring. Expect a media freak out.
