A resolution?

The announcement that the Dubai ports deal was called off included the following:

“Because of the strong relationship between the United Arab Emirates and the United States, and to preserve that relationship, DP World has decided to transfer fully the U.S. operation of P&O Ports North America to a United States entity. . . “

There is, of course, no information about what the “United States entity” is going to be. It could be a corporation registered in the United States, and nothing more. That would be enough to satisfy this commitment, but it tells us nothing about who would own the corporation, who its directors would be, and who would serve as its officers.

The constitution and presidential authority

The current debate about the power of the President to order the interception of communications between Americans and persons outside the U.S. has raised some interesting points about Constitutional interpretation. It is very commonly stated by conservatives and by those who support the President’s position that the Constitution “expressly grants that authority” to him. Of course, it does no such thing. It does provide that the President is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and the asserted power is said to derive from that grant of authority.

Some of these are the same conservatives who regularly respond to the assertion of a constitutional right of privacy by demanding “show me where in the constitution it says that”. These people are no longer constitutional literalists. Now, they are suddenly willing to engage in a broad and liberal reading of the constitution, reading into its words powers and grants of authority that are not stated in its words.

Notable quote

William F. Buckley, Jr.’s definition of a moderate – “If liberals engaged in cannibalism and conservatives denounced cannibalism as sin and abomination, a moderate would be someone who ate only selected people on limited occasions.”

[Found at the Free Republic site.]