Wiretap: An emancipatory president or imperial dictator

Many Republicans seems to have backed away from the idea that Barack Obama’s executive orders were actually illegal. They’re sticking more with dictatorial or imperial. New York Times columnist Ross Douthat explains how, in his view, Obama ran against the Bush/Cheney argument for a strong executive and yet became “an elected Caesar, a Cheney for liberalism, a president unbound.” But Yale law professor Bruce Ackerman sees it an entirely different way. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, he sees the Emancipation Proclamation – with its political limitations but also with its push toward more democracy — as the appropriate model for Obama’s immigration policy. He sees more Lincoln and not so much Cheney.

The immigrants who aren’t going to be helped by Obama’s executive orders. Via the New Yorker.

ColoradoPols fact-checks Colorado Congressman-elect Ken Buck’s sighting of President Obama and “20 hispanic students” this weekend. Buck was eating at a Capitol Hill neighborhood restaurant and took to the Twitter and the Facebook to say the close brush with the president made him “lose his appetite.” Turns out maybe Buck should have put down the cellphone and introduced himself to the crowd. The students weren’t “hispanic.” They were Sioux from the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota.

Republicans finally admit there is no Benghazi scandal. Via Mother Jones.

It’s time to analyze – not ignore – the fact of Fox News’ ratings dominance. Via David Zurawik at the Baltimore Sun.

Chris Cillizza offers up the nine most interesting numbers from the midterm exit polls. He starts with 4 — the number by which Democrats won the women’s vote. In 2008, women went Democratic by 13 points; in 2012, by 11. On the other hand, in 2010, the last midterms, Republicans won the women’s vote by a point. Via the Washington Post.

Marion Barry dies at 78. The Washington Post tells the story of his rise and fall and rise.

Black Friday has morphed into Black Week, and right on time comes Dave Barry’s 2014 Holiday Gift Guide. Via the Miami Herald.

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