Wordspotting, in today's Wall Street Journal editorials:

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy lashed out at our humble profession last week, castigating editorial writers whom he said frequently 'misinterpret" the Court's reasoning ... we'll admit to having referrred 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.

mau-mau: Informal To attack or denounce vociferously, especially so as to intimidate

The editorial also refers to the Supreme Court Greenhouse effect, which we've previously noted, after reporter Linda Greenhouse.

Presumably this comes from the Mau-Mau uprising in Kenya in the 1950s?

EDIT: Yes, it does. I should have looked it up! See the Wikipedia entry.

quote:

Presumably this comes from the Mau-Mau uprising in Kenya in the 1950s?
EDIT: Yes, it does.

Not quite.

The insurrection was in the 1950s, but OED doesn't have it as a verb until 1970, when it was used (and, I presume, was coined) by Tom Wolfe in Radical Chic & Mau-mauing Flak Catchers.

quote:

Not quite

Huh? See the Wikipedia link I gave earlier.