Blawgletter has read a lot lately about the current administration’s reverence for the rule of law.  Take the vice president as a for instance.  He’s claimed King’s X on oversight of how he handles top secret stuff.  The White House supports his position on the ground that "the president gets to decide" whether or not the rules applicable to everyone else in the executive branch also govern the veep and has decided that they don’t.

The freedom to exempt oneself from rules recalls an old American strain of political philosophy.  Its main exponent summed it up thus:

It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.  The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.

Who said it?*

Barry Barnett

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

*(9481) ecneidebosiD liviC, uaerohT divaD yrneH.