[GarySpFc]

First, those articles are set pieces for a small, specialized audience. It required no more effort than she gave to them. There was probably no editorial staff and the only review was done by printer.

I think everyone has made mistakes of this sort when they were preoccupied with more important matters. This is very common in those who are deep thinkers.

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

They're not mistakes.

That is the tenor of her writing.

Her style is that of a pettifogging, careerist bureaucrat, and that is an ineluctable fact, whether you choose to admit so or not.

She is a paper-shuffling, glad-handing cipher, and to delude yourself into believing that those atrociously written, ill-conceived, and poorly articulated papers are anything other than a reflection of who she is as an individual defies logic.

[Racehorse]

I think everyone has made mistakes of this sort when they were preoccupied with more important matters. This is very common in those who are deep thinkers.

It was an obligatory column she probably didn't want to write.  It went with the office. 

That she was lazy about writing it is no big deal, except to would-be sharks going after chum.  :-)

[SteveH]

I think everyone has made mistakes of this sort when they were preoccupied with more important matters.

Such as starting a women's studies program at one's alma mater? Yeah, right.

This is very common in those who are deep thinkers.

I would contend that we see who people really are -- insights into their true character-- at exactly the times when there is apparently little at stake.

I would want someone on the SC who is always hyper-aware of his or her legacy, and who pays attention to small details to ensure that everything is correct. Someone who is self-disciplined and shows it in spades in all of their work.

Whoever that may be, it evidently isn't HM.

Harriet Meirs-- please withdraw your nomination immediately. Thank you.