Joel Mathis

The New York Times' Charlie Savage is an essential reporter on issues of presidential power. He does us all a great service today by surveying the presidential candidates about their views of such power. (President Obama—who answered Savage's 2008 survey, declined to answer; so did Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann.) I'll be dipping in and out of the questions today with an observation or two. Like this one. Savage asked : "Under what circumstances, if any, is the president, when operating overseas as commander-in-chief, free to disregard treaties to which the United States is a party?" There are some bullshit evasions. (Rick Perry: “'Disregard' is a vague and subjective term.") Outside of Ron Paul—who will get his own blog post on this matter—Mitt Romney offers the most cogent answer: The president’s most important obligation is to protect the United States in a manner consistent with the Constitution and U.S. law. The president should also he

Ben and Joel are joined by Joyce Lee Malcolm to discuss  McDonald v. Chicago , a Second Amendment case before the Supreme Court, and the history of the right to bear arms. Malcolm is a professor of law at George Mason University School of Law. She is a historian and constitutional scholar. She is the author of seven books including  To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right  and  Guns and Violence: The English Experience .  Her work on the Second Amendment and the right to be armed has been widely cited in court opinions and legal literature including the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2008 opinion,  District of Columbia v. Heller This coming week -- on May 5 -- she'll appear in Philadelphia at the National Constitution Center  for a discussion about "RETHINKING THE SECOND AMENDMENT: THE CHICAGO GUN CASE AND THE FUTURE OF GUN RIGHTS." The event is 6:30 p.m. Wednesday and is free, but reservations required. Check  constitutioncenter.org  for details. CL