I had the very good fortune to sit on one three-hour session of Jack Goldsmith's Conflicts of Law class last winter at Harvard. I was as impressed by him in the classroom as I have been by his writing and scholarship.

Now, via Orin Kerr, I am impressed on the more important axis of personal integrity.

Newsweek reports that while small factions of the HLS professoriate were villifying Goldsmith for his participation in the Office of Legal Counsel under George W. Bush, he had in fact been taking a hard stand against various illegalities in the executive branch, from the infamous torture memo to the criminal NSA wiretaps. (More, and earlier, from Marty Lederman.)

The article and its tone have set off a minor debate among the Volokh commenters, with one complaining that Goldsmith is "a man who, when confronted with illegality and evil, choose to limit his fuss-making to the point where it wouldn't get him into trouble ..."while the next commenter speculates, "I kept thinking, if there had been more people like ... Goldsmith in Germany in the 30's ... would history have taken a different course?"

While I do understand that there are real reasons to worry about working for an organization whose activities one disapproves, I tend to view the latter commenter as closer to the mark. Having a limited and law-abiding government absolutely depends on having members of that government take those limits seriously-- and therefore, on having those who take the limits seriously agree to work for governments that might tread too far. Goldsmith's gone now, of course, but who thinks the world would be a better place now if he hadn't done what he could while he could at OLC?