Outside the Beltway

Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.

Lethality.

Iran will soon have a new Supreme Leader. For now.

Apparently, not the president or his “leadership council.”

Are our columnists learning? (I think you know the answer).

Apathy all the way down.

“Major combat operations” are underway.

Are some of us more American than others?

Our present-day politics reminds us that the “unfinished work” of democracy is never fully complete.  

David Blight recounts the story of the first Memorial Day.

“Our records indicate that your annual income for the 2011 taxable year was $2,170,000,000,000. You have requested a credit limit of $17,000,000,000,000. These figures exceed the American Public’s guidelines for credit issuance”

Is the war in Libya illegal?

George Will reflects on turning 70.

The myth that the U.S. armed and trained Osama bin Laden in the early 80’s is rearing its ugly head again.

Contempt for Congress is an old American tradition. Unfortunately.

With all the birther talk these days, it’s probably time to question whether we even need the “natural born citizen” rule anymore.

Arizona’s so-called “Birther Bill” seems to violate several provisions of the Federal Constitution.

The duty to defend “hateful, extremely disrespectful, and enormously intolerant” expression.

President Obama says he acted in Libya to avert an imminent genocide, but there’s no evidence that any such thing was about to occur.

Like all Presidents before him, Barack Obama is asserting the right to virtually unfettered discretion when it comes to military matters.

The U.S. seems to be on the verge of changing war strategies in Libya, even as it becomes clear that these rebels aren’t necessarily our friends.

While the prestige outlets of the halcyon days of the last millennium still hold some cachet for those of us old enough to remember that era, they mean next to nothing on the Web.

The uprisings in the Arab world have led some to suggest that the Middle East isn’t “ready” to be free. They’re wrong.

Judge Gladys Kessler upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, but she did so by essentially ruling that the Interstate Commerce Clause means whatever Congress wants it to mean.

The American right has become infected with the notion that Barack Obama isn’t just wrong, but evil. That won’t be healthy in the long run.

Michael Medved wishes that conservatives would stop implying that the President of the United States wants to destroy the United States.

So, what are the constitutional provisions for presidential resignations in Egypt?

Hosni Mubarak has stepped down — for reals this time.

Revolutions don’t happen over a weekend.

Thirty years after the hostages were freed from captivity in Iran, the United States still hasn’t figured out how to deal with the Islamic Republic.

Information made public by Wikileaks appears to have played a role in sparking the protest movement that has brought down the President of Tunisia.

What happens if Southern Sudan’s independence referendum succeeds?

Constitutional ambiguity is as old as, well, it’s as old as the Constitution itself

The usage of the recess appointment process is just another example of the need for institutional reform in the Senate.

Do republics expire after 200 years due to fiscal irresponsibility?

The Presidency has lost the aura of mystique that used to surround it, and that’s a good thing.