Every federal official has an obligation to act in line with the Constitution as he or she understands it. And that doesn't necessarily mean obeying Supreme Court decisions.

One constant factor in the 14 contests with exit polls is that Mitt Romney has tended to run best among high-income and high-education voters. His leading opponents -- Newt Gingrich in South Carolina and Georgia, Ron Paul in Iowa, New Hampshire and Virginia, and Rick Santorum everywhere else -- have run best among low-income and low-education voters.

In a major effort to win back pro-Israel voters, Barack Obama went before AIPAC’s 2012 policy conference and reassured the audience that he “has Israel’s back.”

It appears that China’s leaders are worried that Washington is getting smart, and trying to “westernize and divide China” through a culture war. And President Hu Jintao, who leaves office this year after his five-year term is up, has decided to make an Alamo-like last stand over culture.

There are many reasons to fear that 2012 will be a highly challenging year for the US economy. This is not only because the economic recovery will face considerable headwinds and could be hit by a European financial shock, but also because the US appears to have run out of fiscal and monetary policy space to counter any renewed economic downturn with an additional stimulus.

A fundamental question for those Republicans campaigning to replace Barack Obama as commander-in-chief and, as Harry Truman might have put it, as “leader of the free world,” is how they intend to restore American greatness in a troubled time.

The Palestinian Authority succeeded last Monday in becoming a member state in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).