For conservatives and Republicans, President Obama's insouciant approach to government, that he can do anything he wants using his phone and his pen, is maddening. One week his EPA is enveloping coal plants in a tangle of new regulation; next week he's emptying Guantanamo Bay at any cost. We respond by fulminating about lawlessness and the rule of law and snigger about the president's fecklessness when his actions descend into the farce of the Bowe Bergdahl affair. It's easy to blame Obama for the lameness of his phone-and-pen governance and attribute it to his laziness. But Barack Obama is a politician; what politicians do is fight elections, and Barack Obama -- or his team -- is nothing if he is not good at winning elections, so he is not the first politician tempted to reduce governance to electoral posturing. Joseph P. Schumpeter wrote over half a century ago that “the democratic method creates professional politicians whom it then turns into...(Read Full Article)