I'm rambling here:
I don't know what to make of the new comment policy. And, since I was away when whatever happened with Troop, I can't speak on that - except to say he's questioned my posts about you, so I have a hard time understanding how he can be J. On the other hand, there's been a commenter on my blog, named the "Evil Blogger Lady," and Troop's the first follower on his/her blog, so anything could be happening.
What I can say is this:
I've challenged you on several grounds - ethics being one of them - because, when you're all over the board ethically, anything ugly is possible to happen. Letting standards slip, in that manner, is what makes neighborhoods into ghettoes and then killing fields - I've seen it. Some applaud you for, say, defending a pro-life position in posts, knowing you're pro-choice. I'm not one of them. Such a scattershot approach invites anger because there's no clear through-line and, in our society today, we desperately need one. And, yes, being a law professor doesn't help, making you appear to either denigrate (or at least not appreciate) the position as loftily as we may see it:
You're pretending to be some chick who's a law professor when, in reality, you're a law professor acting like some chick.
I see it as the Boomer/Hippie/NewAge thing - the ethos, that comes with
those roles, to mischievously question even those things that, once mature, you should know are important (and settled) enough to be done questioning. A fetus is a baby - and we don't kill babies. That kind of thing.
Anyway, I don't know if any of that makes much sense, but, just off the top of my head, that's what I'm seeing/feeling. YMMV.
Also, I liked the blog better with Troop (and Shouting Thomas) than without him, but I understand that may be out of your/Meade's hands. One other thing, though:
You and Meade (and Glenn) never apologize for fucking up. But you're human - you do fuck up. Admitting your lapses in judgment can go a long way towards humanizing you in this clearly distancing format. You have power, however limited. This blog, like
Instapundit, doesn't exist in a whatever-I-want-to-do vacuum - it affects lives. Copping to going off the rails occasionally is helpful. You don't lose points for it, but gain them. It may not seem like it, immediately, but some things don't.
I guess that's all I have left to say,...
