Matt Welch reviews Samantha Power’s The Education of an Idealist. (HT David Henderson)
Kevin Williamson exposes the astonishing ignorance of New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie. A slice:
Bouie’s majoritarian ideology is nowhere to be found in the Constitution; in fact, the very structure of American government is designed to frustrate that kind of crass majoritarianism. Hence the Senate (as originally organized) and the presidential veto, both designed as checks on the excessive democratic passions to which the House might be subject; hence the written Constitution and the Bill of Rights, i.e. America’s Great Big List of Important Stuff You Idiots Don’t Get a Vote On, and a Supreme Court constitutionally empowered to police those limits. You can call that an ideology, too, and even conservative ideology, which it is: Properly understood, the principles and philosophy of the Founding are what it is conservatives try to conserve. Unlike Bouie’s sophomoric majoritarianism, that ideology is actually written into our constitutional order. The First Amendment is right there in the Constitution for all to see. Bouie’s dream of “putting the economy under some measure of democratic control” is not.
George Will writes again with eloquence and insight about Hong Kong and the tyrants in Beijing.
Tim Worstall corrects the clueless George Monbiot.
So let me try to head things off at the pass and say that, yes, the president is inexcusably contemptuous of constitutional norms and the basic processes of our system. He is transparently ignorant on these matters, possessing a thumbless grasp of basic civics.
With that out of the way, I have a question: What is Elizabeth Warren’s excuse? Or Kamala Harris’? Or Bernie Sanders’? Or Beto O’Rourke’s?
