DANIEL HENNINGER: Obama’s Creeping Authoritarianism: Imposed law replaces checks and balances. “Every president since George Washington has felt frustration with the American system’s impediments to change. This president is done with Congress. The political left, historically inclined by ideological belief to public policy that is imposed rather than legislated, will support Mr. Obama’s expansion of authority. The rest of us should not. The U.S. has a system of checks and balances. Mr. Obama is rebalancing the system toward a national-leader model that is alien to the American tradition.”

A principle based on a national leader. There’s a word for that in German.