Keep your eye on Catholic In Name Only Justice Anthony Kennedy.

The boys and girls at the Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal think Kennedy might morph into Sandy O'Connor.

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy lashed out at our humble profession last week, castigating editorial writers who he said frequently "misinterpret" the Court's reasoning, according to an article in Monday's Washington Post. The Justice didn't single out any newspaper, though we'll admit to having referred to his jurisprudence on more than one occasion as "protean."

We'd humbly reply to Justice Kennedy that it is precisely this trait that has invited such media mau-mauing. While nominated as a conservative by Ronald Reagan, Justice Kennedy has proven on the High Court that he is open for intellectual rent: from his flip-flop on church-state relations in Lee v. Weisman in 1992, to his anti-abortion nods during his confirmation only to turn into a reliable vote for Roe v. Wade, to his recent embrace of foreign law to justify his own legal preferences, and so on.

Thus it is no surprise that the judicial left is already warning Justice Kennedy that he'd better join the Court's liberal big four--or else. On the same day the Post story ran, one prominent liberal newspaper declared that Justice Kennedy is the Court's new "swing" vote and that it is now his moral obligation to replace Sandra Day O'Connor as the fifth vote to deny a new conservative ascendancy.

The writer graciously allowed that Justice Kennedy's "views are evolving" (translation: becoming more liberal), and that there is something "refreshing about a justice who genuinely seems to have an open mind" (translation: someone who doesn't vote with Antonin Scalia). Overall point: Keep it up, sir, and we'll soon be elevating you to the pantheon with Brandeis, Black and Brennan.

Federal appeals-court judge Laurence Silberman once shrewdly described this media practice as the "Greenhouse effect." He was referring to the fact that a Justice who voted in politically correct fashion would receive laudatory coverage by New York Times reporter Linda Greenhouse, the alpha liberal of the Supreme Court press pack. If the Justice typically joined with conservatives, however, he'd soon find himself characterized as somebody else's clone, or not very bright, or a traitor to his race, or some other derogation.

Justice O'Connor's early years were widely demeaned in this manner, as was the late Justice Harry Blackmun, who was derided as the "Minnesota Twin" of then-Chief Justice Warren Burger before he came around and wrote Roe. Judge Silberman's point is that such media hazing has a larger impact on some Justices than is widely believed, especially given the desire many of them have to be revered and to fit into Washington's social whirl.

As Justice Kennedy's complaint last week suggests, the judicial left knows exactly what it's doing in singling him out. Liberals seem to think they won't be able to intimidate new Justice Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts. Which is why liberals will continue to treat Justice Kennedy as if he's the pigeon in one of B.F. Skinner's behavior-modification experiments.