Now that she won't be my Dean, I am free to say the following. And I am inspired to say the following by my sense that there's a misperception among some about exactly why Elena Kagan's appointment is so important.

Everyone knows the Solicitor General is the government's path to the Supreme Court. But some write as if the job is about arguing in the Supreme Court. That's a mistake. No doubt, that's a part, though historically the SG has argued a small percentage of the cases (sometimes as low as 1 or 2 a term).

Much more important is the policymaking function of the office. The SG must decide on the strategy for interacting with the Supreme Court. He or she must decide which issues to push, which to hold back, how to frame the issues, and how best to maintain the (deserved) reputation of the office as a principled expositor of the (administration's view of the) law.

Having known Elena since I began teaching (she and I started together at Chicago), I can say that I can't imagine a better choice for this job. Granted, she is not an oral advocate -- though again, that's not the job, and having seen her teach (always at the very top at Harvard and Chicago), I have no doubt she'll be superb as an oral advocate.

But she knows the administration cold (after years in the Clinton administration, and many more years studying and teaching administrative law), and, more importantly (and extremely rare for an academic), she has an extraordinary ability to productively engage disagreement. That's the real success from her time at Harvard (I used to think it was impossible to be loved as Dean of Harvard; Elena is loved by everyone). She is a straight talking, brilliant strategist and strong negotiator, who holds herself to insanely high standards. People see that and respect that -- one bit to the key of her success.

As one reflects upon the fact that the most entrenched disagreements the Obama administration will face over the next 8 years will be with a conservative Court that doesn't need to be reelected, it is quickly apparent that the role of the SG is going to be critical. On a list of many (if not all) fantastic appointments by Obama, this one is brilliant. Everyone is saying as much, but few, I think, recognize just how brilliant this is.

Beautifully put by Fred Benenson:

NIN's CC-Licensed Best-Selling MP3 Album

Fred Benenson, January 5th, 2009

NIN's Creative Commons licensed Ghosts I-IV has been making lots of headlines these days.

First, there's the critical acclaim and two Grammy nominations, which testify to the work's strength as a musical piece. But what has got us really excited is how well the album has done with music fans. Aside from generating over $1.6 million in revenue for NIN in its first week, and hitting #1 on Billboard's Electronic charts, Last.fm has the album ranked as the 4th-most-listened to album of the year, with over 5,222,525 scrobbles.

Even more exciting, however, is that Ghosts I-IV is ranked the best selling MP3 album of 2008 on Amazon's MP3 store.

Take a moment and think about that.

NIN fans could have gone to any file sharing network to download the entire CC-BY-NC-SA album legally. Many did, and thousands will continue to do so. So why would fans bother buying files that were identical to the ones on the file sharing networks? One explanation is the convenience and ease of use of NIN and Amazon's MP3 stores. But another is that fans understood that purchasing MP3s would directly support the music and career of a musician they liked.

The next time someone tries to convince you that releasing music under CC will cannibalize digital sales, remember that Ghosts I-IV broke that rule, and point them here.

Citizens' Funding of the Nation's Elections made it into round #2 at Change.org. Here's 7 minutes about why it needs to be in the final list as well. Voting runs from today till January 15. Vote here.

Robert Sand wrote this thesis as an undergraduate at Brown (he is now a law student). Roughly put, it models the effect that the view that "money buys results" has on political participation. The idea he wanted to test is this: that the more you think "money buys results," the less effective you think your own participation in the political process is, and thus, you participate less. And, by contrast, the less you think "money buys results," (for example, because of citizen funding of elections), the more effective you think your own participation is, and thus you participate more.

He's got an enormous range of data for this, and he finds statistically significant results supporting the thesis.

Sand wants to work on this more and eventually publish it. He has included his email address if you'd like to see the data. Obviously, there's tons more work to be done here to verify and understand the model better. But I wanted to share this here (with his permission) because it is precisely the dynamic at the core of the concern that I am talking about: The expectation of illicit influence drives people to disengage -- even if there isn't any such influence.

If this model stands up, it will be an important contribution to this debate. Whether it does or not, quite a contribution from an undergraduate.

Meanwhile, less than 12 hours to vote on the Citizens' Funded Elections proposal at change.org. At this moment, we need 6 votes to get into the second round.

While most companies have cut back on their support for the Commons, wonderfully and amazingly, the most constant and forceful support continues -- Sun ($50k). We're now within $12k of making our goal -- something that seemed impossible just 2 weeks ago. Massive increase in small time contributors. Thank you to all. And please help put us over the top.