Barack Obama

Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama

Just who and what is Barack Obama? If he “willed himself into being,” what did he will himself to be?... Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama by David Garrow (1472 pages, HarperCollins, 2017)

How Reform Laws Backfire

If a reform produces unintended consequences of a troubling sort, succeeding generations of reformers will make use of those consequences not to undo the original reform, but rather to call for new action that requires an ever-larger federal government...

The Morality of President Trump’s DACA Decision

In the wake of President Trump’s decision to rescind DACA, prominent voices have been raised in moral indignation, painting him as a villain. But is that characterization fair?... Much of the Catholic world is in an uproar...

From Russia with Love? Prospects for Cooperation With Vladimir Putin

As major players on the global stage, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump could counterbalance the forces of globalism which seek to destroy all sovereign nations... Can we trust Russia? Should we trust Russia? Should we trust Trump...

Are We All in Favor of National Health Care Now?

President Trump and many "conservative" Members of Congress believe that it is the duty of the federal government to see to it that every American receives healthcare, regardless of cost. Anyone opposing the healthcare entitlement must be willing, or even happy, to see people die in the...

The “Pro-Choice” Delusion

Our moral duty to protect innocent life is the bedrock of civilization and the founding principle of this Great American Experiment... The root of the despotism of this age is clearly the corruption and abuse of language....

Why So Many Leaks in President Trump’s Ship of State?

The myth of civil service neutrality, like the myth of an unbiased press, has fostered the growth of an arrogant, self-interested governing class and structure than can and will defend its own interests... In...

Is America Hopelessly Divided?

No society can survive if its people cannot achieve general consensus on certain fundamental understandings regarding the nature of the person and of society itself... It may seem too much to say that our...

Is Barack Obama Our Worst President?

President Obama's Muslim and community-organizing backgrounds were both traditions that had almost nothing to do with what we once...

Presidential Farewell Addresses

Presidential farewells constitute a great American conversation among the nation’s chief executives and open our view onto a large and detailed panorama of the past... Farewell, Mr. President Tonight, Tuesday, January 10, 2017, Barack Obama will deliver...

The Plato Doctrine & the Essence of a “National Security Strategy”

As grand strategy evolves in America’s ongoing democratic political process, the essence of the Plato Doctrine will be preserved in any new formulation of a national security doctrine, because such is the nature of human political life...

Is There a Problem with the Pardoning Power?

In many countries, politicians have very good reason to hold onto power as if their lives depended on it. Sometimes, as with various brutal dictators, this is literally true; being deposed may well mean being decapitated. Other...

America: A Collapse of Confidence

"I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy. I do not mean our political and civil liberties. They will endure. And I do not refer to the outward strength of America, a nation that is at peace tonight everywhere in...

Cry the Beloved Country: Two Separate Americas

Wednesday was the best night of Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Joe Biden, Tim Kaine, and Barack Obama testified to her greatness and goodness and readiness to be president. And all saw in the Republican convention in...