Cycle of Secrecy

One of Bruce Ackerman's points in today's Slate piece on the NSA wiretapping scandal is that lawyers in the executive branch are encouraged to think like John Woo (and John Roberts and Samuel Alito) about "executive privilege" by being first in line for rewards: i.e. judicial appointments. There's a disturbing circularity: the executive effectively trains lawyers to rationalize secrecy, which in turn trains the executive to be secretive.

I find that strangely (or not so strangely) persuasive as an argument for an otherwise unpersuasive cause, namely filibustering Alito, or impeaching Bush.

UPDATE: Case in point: J. Michael Luttig won't be getting a promotion anytime soon.