Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

Here is Ann Coulter's latest column.

I read Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen’s notion of the role of a president’s Cabinet in “Check the President?” on the March 29 Perspectives page. In fact, the Constitution does not place any checks—not the legislative branch, not the judiciary and not the press—on a president’s impulsiveness. I think that a majority of Americans now believe that our fearless leader needs any adult supervision that might be available.

As for Mr. Thiessen’s opinion that President Donald Trump wants options, it’s clear that Mr. Trump doesn’t want options. He wants people who agree with what he wants to do at any particular moment in time.

Mr. Thiessen believes that incoming National Security Adviser John Bolton and incoming Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are the “team” Mr. Trump needs. Let’s see how long this team plays together.

JAMES HUDZIK

Whitehall

We are not in a trade war with China, that war was lost many years ago by the foolish, or incompetent, people who represented the U.S. Now we have a Trade Deficit of $500 Billion a year, with Intellectual Property Theft of another $300 Billion. We cannot let this continue!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 4, 2018

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Coming Sunday: the Hell of the North. I'll be watching the race live on NBC Sports Gold, starting at three o'clock in the morning. It's my favorite day of the year, by far.

Under normal circumstances, Marc Thiessen (March 30) is correct in pointing out that it is not the job of Cabinet officials to be a check on the president. However this is far from a normal presidency.

In a normal presidency, the president is not the most ignorant man in the room when policy issues are being discussed. In a normal presidency the president has not displayed troubling signs of mental instability.

The Cabinet officials who have attempted to contain this president were not appointed by Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama; they were appointed by Donald Trump. If we take him at his word that he has appointed “the best people,” then we should be extremely troubled by the fact that they feel a need to contain him.

The group with the ultimate responsibility to be a check on this president is Congress. Since Congress has totally failed to perform its duty, every American should be thankful that there were members of Trump's Cabinet who did their best to prevent possibly catastrophic decisions.

The new batch of Trump appointees seems less likely to fill this critical role. For this reason, it’s important to elect members of Congress willing to perform their constitutional duty to act as a check on this president.

Robert Z. Oksner • St. Louis

Check out the fact that you can’t get a job at ratings challenged @CNN unless you state that you are totally anti-Trump? Little Jeff Zuker, whose job is in jeopardy, is not having much fun lately. They should clean up and strengthen CNN and get back to honest reporting!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 3, 2018

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The model I advocate has three elements: socialism as the guiding principle in the economy; liberalism as the guiding principle in politics; conservatism as the guiding principle in culture. I have already said something about socialism. From liberalism I want to keep the emphasis on individual differences and on individual liberty, and drop the emphasis on a 'right to property' (although material reward for achievment [sic] is not necessarily a bad thing). I think that the liberals' emphasis on property-rights is logically independent of the concern for individuality and the concern for individual liberty, even if they didn't think so. Conservatism: Bell remarks that religious rituals are one way of preserving shared affections and sentiments across generations, and that these are what hold any society together. More specifically, in traditional societies the traditions and rituals both express that one consciously shares attitudes and feelings with one's fathers, grandfathers . . . and teach each new generation to share them. Today we are living in the most anti-historical of all ages. People don't share 'affections and sentiments' with past generations—they scarcely share 'affections and sentiments' with each other, except for hedonistic ones, which hardly produce much cohesion or much worth while. I think that one can revise traditions to eliminate racist, or male chauvinist, etc. elements; I think one can respect other traditions while standing in one oneself; but that whatever kind of future we may have some respect for the value of traditions will necessarily be a part of it.

So far I have only argued that socialism in the economy, liberalism in politics, conservativism [sic] (in the sense of valuing tradition) in our culture are separately good. I have not argued that they are compatible. In fact, I think they are more than compatible; I think they are interdependent. (Which is not to deny that one can have hard choices in particular situations, as with any set of two or more different values.) I don't think, for example, that one can have socialism in a good sense without both liberalism and conservativism [sic]. But I must leave that to be defended on some other occasion.

(Hilary Putnam, "A Note on 'Progress,'" Erkenntnis 11 [January 1977]: 1-4, at 3-4 [italics in original])

Off the Record (1977).