My March 23, 2006 column.

Roosevelt, [who was] given special powers to deal with the crisis of the Depression, [and] who broke free of tradition, defied the two-term rule, took on himself the sacred mantle of war leader, and made policy by sheer personal fiat…In Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait, Bendix articulates the different aspects of charismatic authority.1….  Such economic activities are worlds apart from the methodical management of a large-scale corporation, in which success depends upon professional competence and in everyday steadiness in the conduct of affairs that is incompatible with the indispensability of any individual and the sporadic character of very risky transactions.”…Theorists of “deadlock” in the Eisenhower fifties felt that the lethargy of the public, the obstructionism of Congress, the external menace of communism made it imperative for a President to seize every margin of power available to him: he was facing so many hostile power centers that only the glad embrace of every opportunity could promise him success….  He began that process of “routinizing” crisis powers that is the long-range meaning of the New Deal…For Max Weber, charismatic power must always yield in time, either gracefully or by violence, to the everyday order of kingship (traditional rule) or contractual “modern” government (legal rule).

Robles in The South China Morning Post explains things very well:Shaken, not deterred Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has survived a series of scandals to hold onto her presidency Alan RoblesUpdated on Dec 07, 2007 In 1997, the influential Catholic prelate, Jaime Cardinal Sin, belittled the ambition of then-senator Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to run for president….  Other embarrassments include the resignation of her hand-picked election commission chairman under a cloud of corruption allegations, and the furore over an agriculture undersecretary who fled to the US rather than face an inquiry into public funds allegedly used for Mrs Arroyo’s 2004 election campaign.  Just before last week’s abortive coup, Manila was savouring two tales: one had Mrs Arroyo’s husband squabbling with other politicians over huge kickbacks from a telecommunications project funded by China; the other concerned hundreds of congressmen and governors invited to meet the president in her palace and then later receiving bags of cash.

My column today is.It makes reference to Freedom of Expression: Is There a Difference Between Speech and Press from the Cornell University Law School’s Legal Information Institute website; see also the Wex article on the First Amendment to the US Constitution.A veteran’s take on the matter was in the column of Amando Doronila earlier this week.Phoenix Eyrie, Reloaded, on the divisions within the Liberal Party.  Shrewd observations (again, full disclosure: I’m a member of the LP think tank, NIPS, though I’m not a party member).This made me laugh: blogspotting.Senor Enrique goes to the Rizal Shrine with one of the hero’s grandnephews.

My Arab News column resumes this week with Impatience With Colonial Legislation, comparing the reliance of the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore on colonial laws that are incompatible with more modern notions of the relationship between the governors and the governed (two slight errors: autonomy was in 1935, independence in 1946, not both in 1946 as somehow crept into the article; and the Revised Penal Code dates back to 1930 and 1933).  I’ve been thinking about this since 2004, see my September 12, 2004 column Dangerous articles .An Inquirer editorial from June 24, 2007 explains why, and see, also, past entries in Peryodistang Pinay, San Juan Gossip Mills Outlet, and Red’s Herring.

My column for today (after a long absence due to illness) is War freaks.  It features this photograph courtesy of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Quezon and the Church, by Frederic S.  Marquardt, 1954.

“The Nobility of Failure: Tragic Heroes in the History of Japan” (Ivan Morris)