I’m sorry, but I’m getting so much b.s. email from holier-than-thou “real Americans,” “real conservatives” and outside-the-beltway free thinkers I have to get this off my chest.

I was rejected from every college I applied to. I was accepted at a fairly good liberal arts college largely because I had pretty good SATs and I was a male at a time when my school was going from all-female to coed. In other words, I was an affirmative action baby. If anything, I’ve always had a small anti-Ivy League chip on my shoulder.

While I do not like populism, I have written tens of thousands of words criticizing elite universities, elite journalism and the like. I’ve defended evangelical Christians more times than I can count in print, on TV and in front of liberal audiences.

I heard that Miers was nominated in the Miami airport while dancing with my daughter in a waiting area to the tunes of the Mavericks’ “I want to know” playing off my laptop. My reaction then was largely what it has been in the Corner. I had no idea where she went to college when I heard the news. For all I knew she had a J.D. from Harvard and a PhD. from Yale. The idea that my reaction was based on her failure to attend these schools is (offensive) nonsense, pure and simple.

And, as I’ve made clear, I think it’s nonsense to apply that explanation to anybody else around here, but I cannot speak to what it is in their hearts. But I honestly think that when it comes to the more righteous emailers, the fact they think this is the highest, best explanation of my reservations about Miers ultimately says more about many of them than it does about me — or any of us.