I only end up in these places by accident, or in this case thanks to Brad Delong. But Jesus fucking Christ is Drezner an idiot. And Volokh's not much brighter.

But then Delong continues to go back and forth between realism and idealism. Why else would an economist have any interest in "the just" as anything other than the natural outcome of debate.

Is a good speechwriter somebody who approaches the job as if it were a zero-sum game, in which for the president to win the public must lose--must be misinformed and deluded? Or is a good speechwriter somebody who approaches the job as a task of communication and enlightenment?

To me, it is clear that the second of these is the proper definition of "good speechwriter": for no one seeks to do evil--and to misinform and delude is to do evil--knowingly, and anybody who is ignorant about the nature of the good cannot successfully master their craft.
Say what?