This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, March 24, 2009.

I'm Caleb Brown.

It would be just about impossible for even the most careful observer of the Supreme Court

to come up with the overarching jurisprudence of Justice

Anthony Kennedy.

Author Helen J. Knowles calls Kennedy a modest Libertarian in her new book, The Tie Goes to Freedom,

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy on liberty.

We spoke following a forum for the book yesterday.

I describe him as a modest libertarian because he shies away from a lot of the polarized and

radical rhetoric that a lot of people a lot of people accuse libertarians of purveying and I wanted to ensure that if people saw a book

where it said that Justice Kennedy's jurisprudence is libertarian, that I wanted to ensure that they didn't

think he fell into the same category as a lot of libertarians are perceived as being.

He is a very he has a very mild-mannered style and that

comes across in a lot of his rhetoric. It's not harsh rhetoric when he explains his principles.

It's in a very mild-mannered way.

And although I didn't have a chance to interview him,

I have met him.

And the very brief occasion I met him, he came across as the mild manner justice that everybody

says and so that explains the modest part of it and then the libertarianism is kind of getting back to basic principles of

libertarianism the idea of individual sovereignty and of tolerating diverse views and really of the tie going to freedom rather than to the government

so that's why I describe him as a modest libertarian in terms of an area of his jurisprudence where I think my argument will be most well received is certainly in his free speech opinions where when people have if ever people have described Justice

Kennedy as a libertarian or having libertarian tendencies in his

...