October 2005 Archives

Belgravia Dispatch had his plan for “rescuing” the Bush Presidency, but I didn't link to it, because it was well, lame.

Here's Thomas Barnett's which is much more reasonable.

In the continuing theme of why I like people to disagree with me, but find people like Ernie pointless is this quote from Armed Liberal:

But the really sad thing is that people like me have no choice but to support the Administration, because the alternatives - as much as I've tried to look for them - look as doltish as John Kerry. I've got - we've all got - the choice between someone who is trying to do the right thing for what appears to be the right reasons, but is both feckless and mulishly stubborn; and those who neither convince me that they know what the right thing to do is, and certainly offer little evidence that they would do better.

You can read the whole piece here.

As you may have noticed, I've been getting a little bored with Ernie the Troll.

I admit, when he first showed up, I enjoyed reading his half-baked rantings. It was like watching the monkeys at the zoo. And at first, his comments had at least the glimmers of reason.

But he needs new material. Lately its just the same-old same-old.

It's just, well, boring.

Lately he's been getting weirder.

In the last couple of months, Ernie has said:

• That I beat my wife
• That all US Soldiers are ignorant hillbillies
• That I'm a Fundamentalist Christian, part of the “American Taliban”
• That I'm a Satanist
• That I'm a neo-con
• That previously, it wasn't popular to dislike conservatives, but “now it is”
• That he's going to “vote Republican” to “help destroy the nation”
• That he is “bushido” and is going to “kick my ass”

Yeah, whatever. The problem with trolls is that its pointless to reason with them. Anyone who read's the masthead knows that I'm not a big fan of the right or the left, what I am a fan of is intelligent criticism. That's why I linked to Fester today. People who can intelligently disagree with me are much more interesting then people like Ernie. Most trolls are really just looking for attention so responding to them (as this post is doing, unfortunately) just encourages them.

Here's a Wikipedia article on trolls. It's pretty good. For me, the thing that makes Ernie a troll are the following:

• Inability to use the shift key indicates he's probably a teenager.
• Ernie Ervin is a fake name, no Ernie Ervin in Flagstaff that I could find.
• Never refutes points made in counter to his arguments, just jumps to a different topic.

I see a great future ahead for Ernie after he graduates from high school as a media pundit. That is not a compliment...

Fester is my favorite blogger on the left, because he actually knows how to think instead of scream.

Here's a post of his arguing the other side of my argument that the insurgencies switch to IEDs indicates they are becoming less effective. Read it here.

Of course, I disagree with it, and he's posting press pieces that are either a month old, or are talking about a single event that happened a month ago. IEDs are basically just mines, and don't indicate the ability to take and hold territory. It's worth pointing out that there are more Iraqi Police and soldiers now in Iraq then there are coalition troops.

But I thought I'd link to a counter point.

I had some problem with my email, so I was behind on blog comments, so I ended up reading a month’s worth of ernie the troll’s invective at one sitting. Then today, I read this piece.

Enough whining!

Bad enough when ernie the troll does it, now Peggy Noonan is whining too? Someone who was part of the Reagan administration’s message of optimism has just written one of the most depressing things I’ve read in years?

Gah.

Every person in America lives better then the Kings of the past lived. There is no better time to be alive then right now. Even the poorest person in the poorest country in the world lives better now then their king lived 200 years ago.

We’re now whining because a category 5 hurricane directly hit a city of 25 million people and 500 people died?

500 people used to die in a city of that size every time it got cold. A storm like that used to kill thousands of people. Ever hear of the Johnstown flood? Half the town died in that one.

We’re now whining because unemployment is whatever it is? There used to be slavery; unemployment meant you starved to death.

We’re now whining because the President’s choice might not have been from the top ten nominees? The Supreme Court started with people who now wouldn’t even qualify for being a clerk. When we started this country, someone like Harriet Meirs would have been a nominee for Chief Justice.

We’re now whining because someone might have the capability to blow us up. Sure, that’s bad, got me there. Meanwhile though, more of the world is at peace then every before in human history.

We’re now whining about a self-created tempest in a teapot about whether it was a “secret” that the wife of an ambassador was a spy. All ambassador’s wives are spies. It’s their job.

Perspective people. It’s all about perspective. I’m all for continuing the human race’s quest for perfection.

But lets not forget how good we have it really.

It used to be that every day, the best musicians in the world would come to my home and play music for me.

But that wasn’t good enough. So the best musicians in the world had to follow me wherever I went and play for me there. But I still wasn’t satisfied, I wanted more variety, there were plenty of mediocre musicians who had just one song that I liked. So they started following me too.

If I was Queen Elizabeth maybe once a day, 5 hacks from the local stews would come and bang on some instruments for me. They would probably suck, but it would be something to do while avoiding getting killed in my sleep by my “court”. President Bush only has to worry about members of his administration screwing up; Queen Elizabeth had to worry about members of her administration cutting off her head.

Throughout history, its always been optimists who’ve accomplished the great things. The glass isn’t half empty, its full nearly to the brim when we consider modern life, and its worth remembering that.

It’s probably still too soon, but I really could care less about all the stories about who dropped the ball with Hurricane Katrina.

Yeah, the Federal, State and Local governments were incompetent.

Why is this a surprise? Does the government continually amaze us with how competent they are? No. Quite the reverse.

We don’t need to “fix” FEMA. We need to take every bureaucrat in the Department of Homeland Stupidity and drop them in the ocean.

Meanwhile, if you live under sea level, between a lake and the ocean, and your local government is corrupt and continuously siphons the money away from local flood controls projects into their own pockets, when it starts raining, start walking…

Brookings is behind in updating their Iraq Index so I can't easily run the numbers yet but I just thought I'd do a quick post to counter the “2,000 Doom and Gloom” you'll see in the media today.

The insurgents are going to lose. They were always going to lose because what they want is insane.

Don't believe the nonsense you read in the media. If you read the things Al Queda writes about themselves, they want to bring back the caliphate. Guess who gets to be Caliph?

America on the other hand, wants every man to the be the Caliph of his own home. Not one Caliphate, millions of Caliphates.

Which would you choose? Being told what to do by someone else or setting your own destiny? Why do you think the Iraqis are any different?

Sure, they don't like being occupied. Sure they expect their own government to accomplish more then they expect the US Military to accomplish.

This is not news. It shouldn't even be surprising; the destiny of Iraq has always needed to be in the hands of the people of Iraq, not the hands of the US. We've never had a magic wand. Saying that you can't get democracy from the barrel of a gun is like saying democracies don't need policemen. It's never been our job to “fix” Iraq. We only need get them on their feet. And we've been doing that.

To my mind, the insurgents lost the moment Al-Jazeera and the other Arab nations started taking polls in Iraq to determine what the Iraqis wanted, that was the moment we won the war on terror.

Because that means that the Arabs have accepted (whether they realize it or not) that governments rule with the consent of the governed.

And that's the whole ball of wax.

I support the Miers nomination. I had to make this post so that N.Z. Bear could find it and record my vote.

Pretty cool really this N.Z. Bear thing.

If you are interested why, it basically boils down to the fact that the Court has needed a non-judge-worker-bee-type on it for awhile now. That's basically what Meirs is (plus she's female). Too many court decisions lately have been almost impossible to interpret.

So complaining that she's not exactly like all the other judges is well, dumb. As for her politics, I'm a little less concerned about that.

Technorati Tags: Meirs

It is rare that I read something truly original in the realm of foreign policy. Every two months, I get a new Foreign Affairs, where the lefty academics will come out of their ivory towers to tell us the world is America's fault, the right will tell us that we're the biggest nation on earth we should take avantage of it, while others tell us in 20/20 hindsight what we should have done.

Thomas Barnett's first book was truly original, and pure genius. But its his second book I'm reviewing. The second book, while thought provoking, even world-view-realigning, is not the same thing as thought agreeing.

Yes, you read the title of this post right. The book I'm talking about is

Blueprint for Action : A Future Worth Creating

It simultaneously manages to be a work of great genius, and it makes me grit my teeth with his astounding naiveté. This book is a follow up to this previous book:

The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-first Century

a book I've read in airport bookstores but didn't bother to actually purchase (I can read fast, and often have lots of time to kill in PHX).

Barnett's fundamental thesis from the first book is that all of the U.S. military actions have involved what he calls “the Gap”, even during the Cold War, and especially since the end of the Cold War in '89. The Gap is basically all the countries mostly untouched by globalization. Meanwhile, The Core which consists of Europe, and the New Core which consists of countries like China and India.

He's not the first to make this observation, as one wag put it:

No country with a McDonald's ever invaded another country with a McDonald's.

But Barnett ties it all neatly together. I find his arguments very convincing, because they are obviously historically true. We have intervened in more countries since the Cold War then during the Cold War, and most of those countries are the ones most disconnected from the rest of the world.

The interesting thing about Barnett's books is that you'll come to realize this: Everyone is right about our foreign policy to some extent, and wrong to some extent. The neo-cons are right that liberalism is a necessary thing to spread, but wrong about the cost (it will be expensive, messy). The left is right about needing world involvement, but wrong if they think we can keep our head in the sand about dictators and other “bad actors”. The right is right that America has enemies, but wrong if they think that enemy is China; China may be our best ally. The left is wrong about globalization being a bad thing, but right about it causing problems, the right is correct about the spread of liberalization being a good thing, but wrong about the utility of America's military might. I could go on, but the thing about Barnett's books is that his observations are so obviously true that just reading them first hand will shift your foreign policy perspective.

Of course, being right makes Barnett controversial. Lefties think he's a neo-con, neo-cons think he's an internationalist, righties think he's soft on communism. He's not, he's his own beast, which is what makes him interesting.

Additionally, as a Pentagon insider, Barnett gives interesting insight on what this means not just in a foreign policy sense, but in a practical military sense. Barnett argues that we need two military forces: A Leviathan force, which basically excels in killing people; and a SysAdmin force, which can occupy, rebuilt, reconstruct.

Barnett is critical of the administration, but fair as well. He criticizes Rumsfeld for not having enough troops in the occupying force, but also points out that Rumsfeld's work in transforming the Pentagon is exactly what is needed in the modern world and talks about how difficult it is to “move” the Pentagon. I learned from Barnett that the Army purposefully moved all of their “SysAdmin” forces into the reserves after Vietnam: Iraq is the bill we're all paying as a result of that “fuck you” to their civilian leadership.

All very interesting really.

There's a good review of Barnett's first book here.

This review is of Barnett's second book. This book purports to be a blueprint for how Barnett thinks we should accomplish the issues raised in the first book.

After reading his book, Barnett has absolutely convinced me of two things:

1. He's absolutely right about what we need to do. (Genius!)

2. He's absolutely wrong about how we need to do it. (Naiveté)

That is, Barnett has successfully convinced me that we need both a Leviathan and a SysAdmin force in the US military. He has convinced me that yes, the administration has made mistakes in conducting the Iraq war; though not the mistakes everyone thinks. He has also convinced me that we need to make overtures to the new Core (India, China, Brazil) to as he puts it:

Lock in China at Today's Prices

He's convinced me that the Old Core and New Core need to work together to shrink the Gap.

But where I find Barnett hopelessly naive is in his descriptions of how he sees the SysAdmin force working. At this point, Barnett starts to sound like John Kerry. (Though not quite so bad, he points out the UN is useless; that a G8 or G20 organization makes more sense). He argues that somehow, the US would only have to provide 20% of the SysAdmin cost, with the rest being made up by the rest of the world. Now granted, we've had problems for years with NATO with them shortchanging in the high-tech weapons department. Peacekeeping on the other hand is the kind of thing where people are more important then gadgets: I'm sure the Pentagon would trade 2,000 armored Humvees for 2,000 Arabic translators in a heartbeat. We need translators more then we need Humvees. So Turkey, for instance, could provide 2,000 badly needed peacekeeping troops to the US Military, and we could probably use them pretty easily.

But I'm truly skeptical of it actually working, because it never has in the past. Just as his Core/Gap map and Leviathan/SysAdmin metaphors are convincing to me because they obviously true historically, I find his Blueprint unconvincing because they are obviously untrue.

His examples of “successful” intervention by the international community were just awful. Kosovo? We still have troops in Kosovo 10 years later? This is success? They used to export electricity, now they import it?

Even ignoring that, let's say the US does form some sort of international SysAdmin force. Is France going to participate? If France makes up 20% of the force, what happens if they don't feel like joining in? Does that mean that every single country in the G8 has a veto? Even if it is put up to a vote, couldn't a single country pull their soldiers out anyways?

Barnett argues that this just means that the US needs to be better about convincing our allies when interventions are necessary. Uh, excuse me? The only thing that can convince the French of anything is when France itself gets invaded, and then they overreact. Getting unanimous consensus on anything with Europe is impossible. Come to think of it, unanimous consensus on anything is impossible.

So from a military perspective, Thomas' “Blueprint for Action” sounds like a “Blueprint for Inaction” to me. Fundamentally, I think Thomas is missing what I call the “Kosovo Lesson”. For an intervention to be successful, one country in particular will have to take responsibility for it succeeding. Otherwise, it just degenerates into a halfhearted feel-good circle jerk by the G8. “Look everyone, the people are starving, but they aren't killing each other any more”. So if we really want interventions to work, then the US will have to play a dominant role in coalitions of the willing; because nothing else has really worked in the past.

About the only way I could see his SysAdmin force plan working would be if the US started it out as a “disaster relief” force. There are multiple natural disasters every year, and its become the US Military's role to provide relief onsite during those disasters. Perhaps if we started small, where its easy to build consensus (earthquakes are bad), it would be easier to build consensus later (genocides are bad).

Now on the diplomatic front though, I think Barnett nails it. We should have a Pacific Treaty Organization in the same way we have NATO, or rather we should regularly dialogue with the Asian countries and work out some agreements that will bring this “New Core” into the fold. If China is buying oil from Iran, they'll probably have ten times the influence then we will; so if we can get China and Russia to help us suppress the crazy mullahs, that's a good thing. But anticipating that Norway will someday help us stabilize Iran when the mullahocracy collapses? I'm pretty skeptical of Norway doing that.

Now of course, I'm debating his message, which brings me to the moral of this book review. I heartily recommend both this book and especially Barnett's previous book. This is one of the most thought-provoking, and thought-realigning books on foreign policy I've read lately. You won't necessarily agree with it, but it will make you think down some unique paths.

Those unique paths are sadly needed in our foreign policy, we need some new ideas.

Pretty Interesting

Power to the citizen's media!

It's not the teachers that are the problem, it's the educators.

From Opinion Journal:

The Miers debacle is beginning to remind us of New Coke--a product introduced in an effort to expand market share, which instead infuriated loyal customers. If Bush wants to “save his presidency,” the way to do so is clear: withdraw the Miers nomination and reintroduce Court Classic.

Er... You blew the metaphor there dudes.

 Old Coke had Sugar.

 New Coke had corn syrup and was somewhat sweet.

 “Coke Classic” has corn syrup and is slightly bitter. 

 I could digress into why we should end subsidies for sugar, or talk about how you can find people importing “real Coke” from Mexico because of NAFTA, but I guess we were talking about SCOTUS?

 So to follow the metaphor, Bush should wait until Meirs gets turned down by the Senate, then nominate another conservative candidate who will then sail through approval by the Senate because they'll have to show they're evenhanded... What Ann Coulter called a Potemkin nominee?

 Wow, a plot only Karl Rove could love. 

I haven't commented much on Harriet Meirs other then to say it was obvious to me that she was picked to be a worker bee, which the court badly needs. Today, there is a tempest in a teapot because her 57-page answer to the Senate Judiciary Committee's questionnaire was “incomplete and insulting”.

Of course, in the days of the internet, you can download her answers yourself and make up your own mind.

My conclusion: Congress sucks.

Here are a couple of the “insulting answers”:

Q: Has anyone involved in the process of selecting you as a judicial nominee (including, but not limited to anyone in the Executive Office of the President, the Justice Department, or the Senate and its staff) ever discussed with you any specific case, legal issue or question in a manner that could reasonably be interpreted as seeking any express or implied assurances concerning your position on such case, issue, or question? If so, please explain fully. Please identify each communication you had prior to the announcement of your nomination with anyone in the Executive Office of the President, the Justice Department or the Senate or its staff referring or relating to your views on any case, issue or subject that could come before the Supreme Court of the United States, state who was present or participated in such communication, and describe briefly what transpired.

No.

Q Did you make any representations to any individuals or interest groups as to how you might rule as a Justice if confirmed? Please describe and provide four (4) copies of all communications by the Bush Administration or individuals acting on behalf of the Administration to any individuals or interest groups with respect to how you would rule if confirmed.

No.

Think Congress is surrounded by Yes-Men, don't want to hear from a No-Woman? The Senate needs the word No explained to them? That explains why the women in D.C. avoid the Capital building. Perhaps some NOW activists can picket the SJC with “No means No” signs...

Meanwhile, an important question on judicial activism got a 2 and a half page response, which had this great paragraph:

“Judicial activism” can result from a court’s reaching beyond its intended jurisdiction to hear disputes that are not ripe, not brought by a party with standing, not brought in the proper court, or otherwise not properly before the court because of the case’s subject matter. An additional element of judicial restraint is to be sure only to decide the case before the court, and not to reach out to decide unnecessary questions. The courts have the essential role of acting as the final arbiter of constitutional meaning, including drawing the appropriate lines between the competing branches of government. But that role is limited to circumstances in which the resolution of a contested case or controversy requires the courts to act.

I liked the whole 2.5 page answer, personally.

Here's her answer to the “dues payment” thing:

Q List the date(s) you took the examination and date you passed for all states where you sat for a bar examination. List any state in which you applied for reciprocal admission without taking the bar examination and the date of such admission or refusal of such admission.

State Bar of Texas Examination administered in July 1970.

Admitted to the State Bar of Texas on September 18, 1970.

Reciprocal Admission to the District of Columbia Bar on April 4, 1997.

Earlier this year, I received notice that my dues for the District of Columbia Bar were delinquent and as a result my ability to practice law in D.C. had been suspended. I immediately sent the dues in to remedy the delinquency. The non- payment was not intentioned, and I corrected the situation upon receiving the letter.

So Harriet volunteered some information, and now the Democratic members want details? Give it a rest! Maybe the DC Bar didn't send her a bill, so she didn't pay it.

Personally, I score it this way:

Cheap Publicity Stunt by the Senate Judiciary Committee: 0

Harriet Meirs: 1

Hat Tip: ScrappleFace who posted both some “fake answers” (ScrappleFace is a parody site) and linked to the originals.

Well, I've been saying for awhile that we're finally occupying Iraq with the aid of the Iraqis (though you can't really occupy your own country).

Well, Bill Roggio at the Fourth Rail, whose been Johnny on the Spot with his coverage of military actions has this great flash presentation that illustrates this. It's a bit slow, and long, but I call it the March of the Blue Squares because Bill used blue squares to represent where we are trying to hold territory as opposed to the red circles he uses for search and destroy missions.

Anyways, check it out.

The Religious Policeman, a muslim, mocks the 72 virgins.

I rewrote my Beliefs piece for The Noise. Most of my blogging is basically first drafts, so I thought you might be interested in the rewritten version, since its one of the better pieces I've written so far, especially after the rewrite.

If you've ever shaken your head at someone who can only be described as a moonbat, you'll like it. Even moonbats may like it, because its actually somewhat sympathetic.

Technorati Tags: Flagstaff, Griffin, Iraq, moonbat

I rewrote my Beliefs piece for The Noise. Most of my blogging is basically first drafts, so I thought you might be interested in the rewritten version, since its one of the better pieces I've written so far, especially after the rewrite.

If you've ever shaken your head at someone who can only be described as a moonbat, you'll like it. Even moonbats may like it, because its actually somewhat sympathetic.

Technorati Tags: Flagstaff, Iraq, moonbat, Griffin

The DOD is reimbursing soldiers for buying their own gear.

I think we should run a lot of the DOD this way. Soldiers should be required to buy all their little stuff out of an account; they can then choose what how/etc. The camping equipment available to the average civilian is 100x better then the army stuff. Same with boots, hats. etc.

Imagine the FedEx deliveries to the next war... “Hey, my new tent/rifle/tank is here!”

This post from over at Captain's Quarters is actually about Howard Dean, but the title caught my eye as being ultimately true about Iraq:

Extremism will Not Win Elections

Yep. That's why we'll win. Let people vote, and they'll vote for people who are going to create a better Iraq, not people who just scream, hate, behead, etc.

Not everything I read about Iraq is positive, I just don't see the need to drum up the negative from the MSM. Negatives from reasonable Iraqi's are worth the read though.

Every time I read the latest dispatch from Michael Yon I have two feelings:

• Joy at finally getting real reporting from Iraq.
• Anger at the New York Times.

Anyways, this piece is only for eating...

Harriet Meirs is a worker bee:

Furthermore, Harriet Miers's background as a legal practitioner is an asset, not a detriment. She has spent her career representing real people in courtrooms across America. This is precisely the type of experience that the Supreme Court needs. The court is full of justices who served as academics and court of appeals judges before they were nominated to the bench. What the court is missing is someone who understands the consequences of its decisions on the American people.

This experience gap is a real one. With the exception of the newly confirmed chief justice, John Roberts, no justice on the court has been an advocate in a court of law in the past 25 years, and Chief Justice Roberts was involved only at the appellate level.

Harriet Miers, by contrast, has a long and successful career as a lawyer representing corporate and individual clients in a variety of state and federal courts. I am confident that this background provides her with an understanding of the burdens of modern litigation, a recognition of the problems with frivolous lawsuits and an appreciation for tort reform.

To quote Ann Coulter:

Historically, the best way to convert liberals is to have them move out of their parents' home, get a job, and start paying taxes.

Flagstaff seems to have hit upon a new method.

What has been happening lately is that Flagstaff is starting to have problems with the homeless. Now mind you, there have always been a fair number of homeless hanging out in Flagstaff in the summer. For one thing, they could camp in the National Forest, and as long as they moved every 14 days, that was pretty much legal. The reality would be that there would be a couple of camps where the rangers would more or less leave them alone, and a couple of hints from the rangers if they rousted someone would usually serve.

With temperatures reaching 110 degrees at 10pm at night in Phoenix, it was just part of the changes of the seasons, the homeless showing up in Flagstaff for the summer. When it got cold again, the homeless would usually drift back. Meanwhile, the mission on San Francisco street would provide services to them. It wasn't ideal, but it was an uneasy truce.

Lately though, the truce has been getting broken by the homeless. There are a couple of locations in Flagstaff with an “urban trail”. These have turned into “homeless sleeping areas”. So the people who live next to those trails have had the following problems:

• Garages and Sheds getting broken into.
• Petty Theft
• Trash getting filtered through, then tossed around

Which is one thing, but lately something much worse has been happening, because those “urban trails” were also the way that most of the kids walked to and from school. Basically, if you're a teenage girl, you can no longer walk safely on the urban trails. So the parents have been having to form neighborhood groups to walk the kids to and from school.

In previous years, the homeless had always sort of known the line and didn't cross it. Lately, they've been crossing it. From talking with some of the poorer people in town, its been the Indian homeless who have been the worst lately. I suspect what's been going on is that the Indians have been kicking them off their reservation, and they've been drifting over to Flagstaff.

So while its one thing to be reasonably tolerant of the homeless (especially since lots of people in Flagstaff are only about 2 paychecks from being homeless themselves), its another thing to have your kids accosted.

The city council has discussed this a bit, with one of the more liberal members saying we shouldn't do anything until “we improve the services for the homeless”. Well, that's a nice theory, but Flagstaff isn't a very rich town. We can't really afford more homeless services.

I'm not offering any solutions either. This is a tough problem. While it may be socially unacceptable to rummage through a persons trash and leave it scattered all over the street, or to say rude things to a young girl, the first one is only littering, and the second is free speech. Rudeness is not a crime.

Though its getting colder, this whole issue may blow over by the end of the month. I suspect what will happen is there will be an ordinance passed against camping within the city limits; that will give the police the tools they need to selectively roust the homeless. Given that the worst of the homeless tend to prey on the other homeless, that's probably a good thing all around.

  A milestone has been reached on the military front in Iraq. Basically, the fact that the Iraqi Military and Police can be used to hold territory has completely transformed the war in Iraq. The MSM won't notice this for another couple of months; they'll continue with the quagmire stories. But already, the effects of this transformation have shown up in the casualty reports coming out of Iraq. Despite some of the most intense activity in Iraq to-date by the US Military, the number of servicemen killed in Iraq in September has been way down.

As a consequence, we've been able to not just keep the terrorists off balance, we've been taking and holding territory, with impressive results. Bill Roggio has excellent coverage of the operations we've been conducting, I want to talk about the big picture. First, here's a chart showing U.S. deaths in Iraq for 2005 by the cause.

Technorati Tags: Iraq

Count me in on supporting her.

Basically, it comes down to this: Two many queens on the court and not enough worker bees. I remember reading Volokh venting on some Supreme Court decision that the Court desperately needed an actual practicing lawyer on the bench, because they were writing decisions that were unintelligible. Ginsberg and others sitting on the court have said the same.

Hence, Meirs.

Cheney confirms it:

...we think it was important as well to have somebody like Harriet who's got a strong legal background, but who doesn't come off the bench.

I think that Volokh agrees:

During that era and before -- though not as much since the Stevens appointment in 1975 -- Justices were often drawn from among practicing lawyers who had made their reputations as lawyers; and, as lawyers, they were more often likely to have developed relationships with the President who appointed them, or at least the President's team. Chief Justice Roberts in some measure fits that profile as well, though of course he was an inside-the-Beltway lawyer as opposed to Miers, Powell, O'Connor, and to a smaller extent White, who built their careers in their own states. They were not academics or judges; but the current heavy loading of ex-academics and ex-judges is a relatively modern phenomenon, not a settled long-term tradition.

Volokh goes on to say:

My point is simply that when one is looking at Miers' career and credentials, it may be helpful to avoid comparing her to the current crop of Justices -- the natural tendency whenever one is considering a new nominee -- but rather to nominees who come from a different, but just as historically well established, mold.

So to all the people on the left and right who are whining, give it a rest. Harriet Meirs is obviously capable of doing some heavy lifting, and that's why she got nominated. The President isn't trying to establish a judicial legacy, he's trying to fix something that is broken in the court; namely that the justices have been a little too far removed from reality.

I think both the left and the right should be happy with that. Certainly things like Kelo and other decisions were absolute disasters.

At Princeton. Even if you don't agree with her, you should go read her speech so you know what exactly it is you disagree with...

That sounds funny I'm sure, but “liberalism” used to mean the spread of “liberty”. I'm not sure what it means any more, given that one of the most “conservative” Secretaries of State we've ever had is giving a speech at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.