I normally disregard the views of academics largely because they don’t have enough eyeballs reading them or ears hearing them to make any difference.  But Michael Krauss at GMU has some insights into the failed Debo Adegbile nomination worth reading:

Reflection #2: Zealous, No-Holds-Barred Advocacy is Never Required By, and Is Sometimes Prohibited By, Legal Ethics.  Not only need a lawyer not take any given prospective client’s case, but when she does take a case she is neither bound to nor allowed to employ every conceivable means to succeed.  Lawyers may of course not break the law (bribe jurors, etc.), but their ethical limits do not stop there.  The ethical lawyer should not offer arguments that inflame racial passions, for instance, even if those arguments are likely to produce the desired result. . . .
Adegbile’s team’s political militancy is quite properly “owned” by Adegbile when it comes time to consider him for the privilege of a high governmental office.