Unfortunately, this president’s acts of high handedness and self-absorption have been accumulating in the past several months at a blistering pace

◼ Obama's hubris problem - Keith Koffler/Politico

Tuesday morning, a peculiar announcement trickled out of the White House press office: President Barack Obama would be holding a moment of silence for the victims of the Boston bombings. At the White House. By himself. No press or other intruders allowed.

Except the White House photographer.

That Obama assumed Americans would want an iconic photo of him privately mourning the victims of the bombings was emblematic of a kind of hubris that has enveloped the president and his White House as the president commences his second term.

Hubris in a leader is an obnoxious thing, leading to imperiousness in governing. And it’s also a dangerous thing for a second-term president, often spelling trouble....

Obama is already giving off that “L’etat, c’est moi” vibe, effectively legislating from the Oval Office.
He is picking and choosing which laws to enforce - like deciding not to deport certain groups of immigrants who would have been protected by the failed Dream Act and opting not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act.

This could be just the beginning. He vowed last week, as he has in the past, to advance his gun control agenda on his own. “Even without Congress, my administration will keep doing everything it can to protect more of our communities,” Obama said.

The vast new Obamacare law gives him an endless array of regulations to implement, offering a cornucopia of opportunities to interpret the statute in ways that give him powers he shouldn’t have. The 900-page immigration bill may do the same, should it pass.

But hubris may not only lead a president to stretch power, it can result in abuse of power....

If Obama starts to get too grand a sense of himself and sheds the last vestiges of concern for how others perceive him, it could lead him, as it has so many in positions of power, to believe he is beyond accountability. And that could end up as a tragedy for him, and for the nation.

◼ The Presidential Wheel Turns: Disaffection for Bush gave us Obama. That explains the new affection for Bush. Peggy Noonan/Wall St. Journal

This week something changed. George W. Bush is back, for the unveiling of his presidential library. His numbers are dramatically up. You know why?

Obama fatigue has opened the way to Bush affection...