Based on my quick reading of one of the Miers speeches the Post reported on, I would say two things: 1) its quality is just awful–embarrassing. I hope–although I doubt it–she was using it to riff off of, rather than reading it verbatim; 2) the Post seems to have distorted its content in one key respect. It seems to me she is not endorsing judicial activism, but noting that politicians tend to punt hard decisions to the courts. A few passages:

What I see about all of this that is the most disturbing is that there has evolved a “government by non-action” or a shifting to the judicial system of the responsibility for making all of the hard decisions… Sometimes I believe that elected officials would rather abandon to the Courts the hard questions so they can respond to constituents: I did not want to do that—the Court is making me. Many of the decisions that really need to be made are hard and unpopular. So its just politically advantageous to not make them.
At some point we need to let our elected officials know that their inability to solve problems in such a way that a court could not step in is unacceptable political leadership. And political leaders have to start showing more leadership and willingness to make unpopular decisions.
My basic message here is that when you hear the Courts blamed for activism or intrusion where they do not belong… Stop and examine what the elected leadership has done to solve the problem at issue and whether abdication to courts to make the hard decisions is not a too prevalent tactic in today’s world. Politicians who are too concerned about maintaining their jobs.

This one about race is more ambiguous. She seems to be saying that the courts inevitably have role, but that they create a backlash. This is typical of the cringe-making writing in the entire speech, by the way:

The necessary continued requirements by the Courts for progress frequently has the effect of hardening feelings and slowing the process and in my view the ultimate benefit of a society whose wealth is diversity and who pulls together against common enemies.

There are other major problems with this speech, and the muddled thinking and poor writing are disturbing enough on their own, as Ed Whelan points out at Bench Memos. But I don’t think the Post was careful enough in its reporting.