Dear Rick,

In my "deep waters" post, I didn't say that you "lack [my] appreciation for the depth of the relevant waters."  I *did* that that the waters are deep--and that generalizations are perilous.  Sometimes when we--that "we" certainly includes me--blog, we say things that are too quick, too simple, too shallow.  But when we do so, that doesn't mean that we--or our appreciation of the issue at hand, whatever it is--are necessarily simple, shallow, .... If you tell me that you can run just as fast as I can, if not faster, in appreciating the depth of the waters (how's that for mixing metaphors?!), I say:  Doesn't surprise me!

About "going into it":  that will have to wait until *after* the Second Circuit Judicial Conference.  I want the judges to be the first to hear what Kent Greenawalt and I have to say to them about the issues we plan to put on the table.