Outside the Beltway

Politics, the law, culture, and a very old language collide.

One of last members of President Obama’s original cabinet is stepping aside.

The sixth year of a presidency leads to some predictable commentary (and some comparative notes).

President Obama hits new job approval lows, while the GOP seems poised for success in November,

Self-described socialist Bernie Sanders is contemplating an independent run for the presidency.

And presidentialism encourages this kind of behavior.

One analyst thinks that the predictions of a Republican Senate in 2014 are wildly optimistic.

Some have argued that there is an historical bias against political parties holding on to the White House for more than two terms. As with most commonly held ideas, that simply isn’t true.

If Republicans win the Senate, what we’ve seen for the past three years could end up seeming tame by comparison.

The chattering class is chattering about the President’s vacation again. It really is quite tiresome.

Even with the passage of time, Watergate remains a singularly important event in American history

Debbie Dingell is set to continue an 80 year legacy of Dingells occupying the same seat in the House of Representatives. That’s not a good thing.

It wasn’t the Democrats.

Once again the GOP finds itself on the wrong side of public opinion.

Relying on the policies of a man who was President in a very different time is not a substitute for a rational foreign policy.

A lot of Republicans dislike the President enough to think that he should be removed from office, but will that make impeachment more likely to happen?

The various factions in Afghanistan have agreed, at least in principle, to alter the nation’s government as part of a deal to resolve election disputes.

John Boehner’s latest political move is designed mostly to appease the GOP base, but it’s likely a non-starter from a legal point of view.

The current Congress is on course to be the least productive in decades.

Some people on the left are still trying to convince Ruth Bader Ginsburg that she needs to just step out on the ice floe already.

There are legitimate issues regarding Presidential overreach and separation of powers that President Obama’s actions while in office have raised. But none of that will be discussed in our hyperpartisan political culture.

More on instiutional design.

A new poll shows that Americans don’t buy into the idea of “American exceptionalism” as much as they used to. That’s a positive development rather than a negative one.

A US-EU free trade zone is a no-brainer. But the devil is in the details.

Republican overreach could end up helping the President and his party.

The June Jobs Report is basically good news.

Obama is the worst President since FDR died? Only if you believe a mostly worthless poll.

Public faith in government institutions is at all all time low.

If current trends holds, Democratic candidates are going to have a problem turning out voters in November.

One of Washington’s giants has passed away.

A clash over Separation Of Power and the Imperial Presidency, coming soon to a Federal District Court in Washington, D.C.

The House leadership elections turned out about as expected, but we may be doing this all over again in five months.

More bad poll numbers for the President.

Not surprisingly, Bill Clinton is the most admired recent President according to a new poll, but his predecessor seems to be underrated.

TNR makes the worst possible case for a proposition that’s almost certainly right.

Some bad news for the President.

Apparently, things were tougher in Chappaqua, New York and on D.C.’s Embassy Row than we ever imagined.

Mostly because of politics, the hopes of some and fears of others will never be realized.

Hillary Clinton remains at the top of the polls, but she’s got at least one big vulnerability.

Trying to make some sense out of a week of outrage.

When everything’s an outrage, is anything outrageous?

A Reuters political blogger has set tongues wagging about the possibility another First Lady might run for the U.S. Senate.

Good intentions and good results aside, the President’s disrespect for the Rule Of Law should concern everyone.

Looking back at the first round and forward to the second.