WASHINGTON (AP) — Retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy said Wednesday he was troubled that partisanship seemed to be “creeping its way into the court,” and that the state of political discourse in the country has gotten so vulgar and vile that he worries for the country.

The tone of recent opinions bothers him more than outcomes of cases, Kennedy said in an interview with The Associated Press in his court office in advance of next week's publication of his memoir, “ Life, Law & Liberty.”

“The justices have to resist thinking of themselves as being partisan,” he said. “In our current discourse, it seems to me, partisanship is creeping its way into the court.”

He declined to identify any justices or opinions, but at another point he returned to the personal nature of some court o

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