Having been removed from office on a unanimous vote of the Illinois State Senate, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich shows an unsurprising failure to understand the principal virtue of the constitutional impeachment process.  Ben Franklin explained this virtue to his fellow delegates at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787.              Impeachment, Franklin said with customary drollery,…

I generally don’t read newspaper editorials, because they are so often namby-pamby or poorly-informed. For once, though, I thoroughly commend the Washington Post’s objection to the recent appointment of successor senators by our nation’s governors.  This is one more situation where the Original Charter (that is, the Constitution) did not anticipate the problem. Senators are…

This new president not only went to good schools, he seems to have remembered some of what he was taught, and has kept on learning.  His Inaugural Address had some admirable historical touches.  Indeed, the new guy showed a better grasp of history than marquee historian Joseph Ellis, who did not meet his usual standards for insight and…

   As Barack Obama and Joe Biden prepare for Inauguration Day, they can allay pre-ceremony jitters with the calming thought that it will be difficult to perform worse than Andrew Johnson of Tennessee did when he took the oath of office as vice president on March 4, 1865.  That occasion — with a Union victor in sight…

Some events reveal character.  So it is with the Senate Democratic leadership’s response to the appointment of Roland Burris to the Senate by politically radioactive Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois.  The character that has been revealed, alas, is weak and stupid.   Under investigation for attempting to sell the very same Senate seat and other…

If you’ve been wondering why I haven’t posted anything since the holidays, my website was sidelined by a security breach suffered by the server that hosts the site.  Between the holidays and a less than nimble response by the host, I have been throttled far more effectively than any court order could.  (I’m actually writing…

While most Americans are focused on the holidays and then the Inauguration, the book business is braced for Lincoln Bicentennial Madness on February 12, 2009, the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. Lists of Lincoln books are being promulgated by the national Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, the Kentucky commission, and doubtless many others. If you have…

Some of my favorite stories feature craven pols betraying the public interest. Just give me a steady diet of corruption porn. It’s been a good week, with Illinois Governor Blagojevich taking the concept of “felony stupid” to a whole new level: (i) He was auctioning off a Senate seat, (ii) held by the man who…

Having spent a good deal of my life exploring problems with the U.S. Constitution, I have a generally high tolerance level for governmental and constitutional confusions. The current mess in Canada, a nation that enjoys an enviable reputation for levelheadedness and civic virtue, underscores that even the best among us can contrive a constitutional structure…

When Barack Obama takes the oath of office, he will be acclaimed as our 44th president, but that calculation omits a true footnote in history, the one-day presidency of David Rice Atchison of Missouri. Atchison was Senate President pro tempore on March 4, 1849, and served as president for 24 hours because the new president,…