On unequal access to the justice system, Miers wrote:

```We have to understand and appreciate that achieving justice for all is in jeopardy before a call to arms to assist in obtaining support for the justice system will be effective.  Achieing the necessary understanding and appreciation of why the challenge is so important, we can then turn to the task of providing the much needed support'.'' 

Apparently on legal ethics:

 ```We must end collective acceptance of inappropriate conduct and increase education in professionalism.''' 

Brooks notes:

``I don't know if by mere quotation I can fully convey the relentless march of vapid abstractions that mark Mier's prose.'' 

and suggests, very reasonably, that we should

``Throw aside ideology.  Surely the threshold skill required of a Supreme Court  justice is the ability to write clearly and incisively.  Miers' columns provide no evidence of that. ''

In E.J. Dionne's admiration column for William Buckley the other day and the discussion which ensued on this site, we were reminded that the Buckleys, Brooks, and Kristols of this world fancy themselves as deep thinkers in their salon rooms, whatever the meager evidence for that in the public realm.  To them, this nomination is a major slap in the face.

It is, of course, a slap to all of us and so I endorse the above remarks by Brooks.  Strategically, though, before we insert higher standards into the discussion we ought to let them have at each other a bit more.  When they pull out their long knives inside their big tent, they are apt to slice a few more holes in it.