Citizen Leadership

Chapman Center for Citizen Leadership

Palin and the Politics of Familial Destruction

Governor Sarah Palin’s stunning early resignation elicited predictable surprise and sympathy from most of her supporters, and equally predictable surprise and sheer glee from most of her detractors. The question uppermost in the minds of political types was when, if ever, she might run for President. That question, while intriguing, is secondary. Front and center is how much the politics Read More ›

The Death of Dialogue?

Cultural relativists like to talk about dialogue. They tell us that we need to engage in dialogue with people who are different from ourselves so that we can understand their perspective and become more tolerant. They tell us that we must listen to the voices of the marginalized and the excluded so that we can rethink our assumptions about the Read More ›

Good judges overcome personal bias and rule according to the law

Two recent events have exposed a paradox in our attitudes toward our system of justice. On the one hand, President Obama has nominated Sonia Sotomayor to be a judge on the U.S. Supreme Court. He has said that he especially values her because of her “empathy.” Empathy can be loosely defined as a tendency to sympathize with those of a Read More ›

potato head
funny potato head with face
Image Credit: Alrandir - Adobe Stock

The Mr. Potato Head Constitution

As Senate hearings gear up for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, an old question is again current: Is the U.S. Constitution a “living document”? Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes first popularized the idea of the Constitution as protean organism in a 1920 Supreme Court case, Missouri v. Holland. There he argued that judges should have broad interpretative latitude in their efforts Read More ›

Ed Meese Hailed for Defending Freedom

This article, published by WorldNetDaily, is about Edwin Meese III of Discovery Institute: On July 9, 1985, Ed Meese dropped a constitutional bombshell on Washington, D.C. that shook the foundations of the federal judiciary all the way to the Supreme Court. The rest of the article can be found here.

Medved Pummels Political Correctness

In a speech at Discovery Institute, where he is a Senior Fellow, Michael Medved described the origin and startling trajectory of his latest book, “The Ten Big Lies About America.” Medved advised an enthusiastic crowd gathered at a book party that his book has been ignored by major reviewers, but (as happens these days), already has gone through nine printings since it first appeared Read More ›

Chapman Shares 2010 Census Concerns

Former Director of the U.S. Census Bureau Bruce Chapman, who now is president of Discovery Institute, has been interviewed repeatedly on the current controversies facing the conduct of the 2010 Decennial Census. Here is his interview on WTOP, Washington, D.C. Regarding the announcement today of President Obama’s choice of Dr. Robert Groves of Michigan to head the bureau. Audio begins with Bruce Chapman’s answer to the question Read More ›

The P-I: Saying goodbye to a liberal voice

The editorial ‘Too many posers’ in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer assails the majority Democrats in the Washington State Legislature for not following through on their promise to adopt green “cap and trade” legislation. It would have been much better for them to respond to the recession by committing political suicide, apparently. It was a perfectly pitched swan song for the unfailingly liberal voice of Seattle’s Read More ›