Photo Credit: AP“The constitutional amendment before us,” Harry Reid said Tuesday, describing a proposal to give federal and state governments the authority to regulate political giving, “isn’t about limiting free speech.”

Harry Reid, may I present the American Civil Liberties Union. I am sure you two have met before.

Writing in June that the nonprofit “strongly opposes” the so-called Udall amendment, the ACLU’s Laura Murphy and Gabriel Rottman called the Democratic proposal “deceptively complex,” “unnecessary,” “redundant of existing law,” “dangerous for liberties,” “vague,” “overbroad,” “exceedingly dangerous to democratic processes,” and “the first time the amendatory process has been used to directly limit specifically enumerated rights and freedoms.” Reid’s baby, the ACLU said, would “‘break’ the Constitution” by “amending the First Amendment.”

Two levels of government would be permitted “to criminalize and censor all issue advocacy that mentions or refers to a candidate under the argument that it supports or opposes that candidate.” Recall that Citizens United, which the Udall amendment is supposed to address, was not about Tea Party Astroturf. It was about the FEC’s attempt to censor a film critical of her royal highness.

The mandarins at the FEC and IRS, as well as their counterparts at the state level, would be responsible for distinguishing political communications that “support or oppose” a candidate from those that do not. They would penalize the individuals and groups they subjectively deem violators of administrative diktat. If this is not about “limiting free speech,” what is?

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Photo Credit: ShutterstockThe clearest expression of a foreign policy doctrine President Obama has articulated came in 2012, when he announced that the “tide of war in Afghanistan” had “turned,” and that this was lucky because it was “now time to focus on nation building here at home.” Al-Qaida, defined so narrowly as to exclude everyone save Osama bin Laden and his closest friends, was declared “defeated”; and a satisfied commander in chief confidently turned to domestic matters.

Obama’s assumption that a vigorous foreign policy and a successful domestic agenda are in conflict is wrong. The U.S. experienced high rates of economic growth and development (with occasional recessions) throughout the post-World War II period while also maintaining the world’s largest military. In the 19th century, Great Britain’s citizens enjoyed among the best living standards in the world, even as the nation maintained an empire and ensured freedom of navigation for all. Though many Americans now recoil from the role for themselves, the British served for most of the 19th century as the “world’s policeman.”

In his West Point speech, Obama mocked his predecessor for believing that “every problem” has a military solution. What he fails to see, even now, is that while there are risks in action, there are also risks in inaction. The choice to refrain from intervening in Syria was not safe or “smart.” It wasn’t like voting present in the Illinois senate. By declining to support the less radical factions opposing Bashar al-Assad, he permitted the most savage actors to dominate; and now they’ve spilled over Syria’s borders into Iraq and created a threat that even Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel says is “beyond anything we’ve ever seen.”

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