Obama suffering from loss of trust

Leaving aside the seriousness of lawlessness, and the corruption of our civic culture by the professionally pious, this past week has been amusing. There was the spectacle of advocates of an ever-larger regulatory government expressing shock about such government's large capacity for misbehavior. And, entertainingly, the answer to the question "Will Barack Obama's scandals derail his second-term agenda?" was a question: What agenda?

Federal overregulation: Why judicial activism is overrated

— James Madison, Federalist 48

A sensible caution, poorly stated

People who talk incessantly often talk imprecisely, and President Barack Obama, who is as loquacious as he is impressed with his verbal dexterity, has talked himself into a corner concerning Syria and chemical weapons. This is punishment for his rhetorical carelessness, but the nation’s credibility, not just his, will suffer.

Waiving citizens’ constitutional rights rarely ends well

Two of the three most infamous Supreme Court decisions were erased by events. The Civil War and postwar constitutional amendments effectively overturned Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), which held that blacks could never have rights that whites must respect. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which upheld legally enforced segregation, was undone by court decisions and legislation.