"There are three big losers from President Obama’s cynical appointment of Susan Rice as his new national security adviser: Secretary of State John Kerry, Congress and the American people. ... 

"Rice has the weakest credentials of any national security adviser in the history of the office, but she has the president’s ear as his old pal. And she’ll work in the White House: Proximity to POTUS is trumps in DC. Kerry’s desk in Foggy Bottom might as well be a hundred miles from the Oval Office. 

"However incompetent, Rice may become the most influential national security adviser since Henry Kissinger eclipsed the entire State Department. Which means that Obama’s foreign policy, already disastrous, is now going to get worse."

"Almost half of Americans say President Barack Obama isn’t telling the truth when he says he didn’t know the Internal Revenue Service was giving extra scrutiny to the applications of small government groups seeking tax-exempt status.  

"Forty-seven percent of Americans say they don’t believe Obama compared with 40 percent who say he is being truthful, according to a Bloomberg National Poll of 1,002 adults conducted May 31 through June 3.  

"More than half of political independents -- 53 percent -- say Obama’s explanation that he learned it from media reports is untrue, while 34 percent say they believe him."

"Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday that the Obama administration would sign a controversial U.N. treaty on arms regulation, despite bipartisan resistance in Congress from members concerned it could lead to new gun control measures in the U.S.  

"Kerry, releasing a written statement as the U.N. treaty opened for signature Monday, said the U.S. 'welcomes' the next phase for the treaty, which the U.N. General Assembly approved on April 2.  ... 

"The treaty would require countries that ratify it to establish national regulations to control the transfer of conventional arms and components and to regulate arms brokers, but it will not explicitly control the domestic use of weapons in any country.  

"Still, gun-rights supporters on Capitol Hill warn the treaty could be used as the basis for additional gun regulations inside the U.S. and have threatened not to ratify. "

"[T]he Obama administration is in an unexpected and sharp state of decline. Mr. Obama has little influence on Congress. His presidency has no theme. He pivots nervously from issue to issue. What there is of an Obama agenda consists, at the moment, of leftovers from his first term or proposals that he failed to emphasize in his re-election campaign and thus have practically no chance of passage. 

"Congressional Republicans neither trust nor fear the president. And Democrats on Capitol Hill, to whom Mr. Obama has never been close, have grown leery of him. ... 

"The Obama breakdown was not caused by the trio of scandals -- IRS, Justice Department, Benghazi -- now confronting the president. The decline preceded them. It's the result of what Mr. Obama did in his first term, during the campaign and in the two months following his re-election. But the scandals have worsened his plight and made recovery next to impossible."

"The White House's success in last year's election hinged in part on its liberal activists, who played a big role in getting the base out to vote. That's the model Mr. Obama and his Organizing for America political-support group are betting on for the 2014 midterms, too. So you can bet the White House is concerned about the fury coming from these allies now.  

"That's why, of all the scandals, the White House is pouring the most effort into damage control on Justice. ... 

"The left and the press have always been with Mr. Obama when it really mattered, and that may well remain the case. The particular significance of Justice's press scandal is that it has deprived Mr. Obama of support at a time when he is vulnerable on so much else. Who knows what will come of that?"

"During his recent Naval Academy commencement address, Obama said: 'It's no secret that in recent decades many Americans have lost confidence in many of the institutions that help shape our society and our democracy. But I suggest to you today that institutions do not fail in a vacuum. Institutions are made up of people, individuals. And we've seen how the actions of a few can undermine the integrity of those institutions.' 

"Mr. President, meet your attorney general."

“As legendary Marine Gen. James Mattis has said, ‘No war is over until the enemy says it's over. We may think it over, we may declare it over, but in fact, the enemy gets a vote.’ 

"That line came immediately to mind last week when President Obama declared that history tells us the war on terror must end. As an objective statement of fact, that is of course true. The war on terror must end. So must all life on this planet. But saying so doesn't make it so. Some things must end on their own timetable. ... 

“A lot remains unknown about what Obama actually intends to do -- or will be able to accomplish regardless of his intentions. He is very fond, at least rhetorically, of treating terrorism as a law-enforcement issue. If we aren't attacked for a while, his new approach will seem wise. If we are attacked, it will seem like folly. 

“And that's basically the point. We know that there are plenty of Islamists eager to murder Westerners, even cut off our heads in broad daylight. No one doubts that they'd use something more lethal than a rusty machete if given the opportunity. And so the success or failure of Obama's grand strategic vision depends entirely on what our enemies do next. That's because they get a vote, and they vote ‘nay.’”

"It's too early to tell if May will be remembered as marking the beginning of a failed second term for President Obama, but it is clear the atmosphere in Washington has changed. We don't yet know the full impact of new revelations about last September's attack in Benghazi, the political abuse of the Internal Revenue Service, and the Justice Department's secret surveillance of journalists, but we do know there are questions in Congress and among a suddenly energetic Washington press corps, questions likely to affect the president's agenda and legacy. ... 

"Will all this lead to impeachment, as some have speculated recently? Probably not, and certainly not now. But not being guilty of an impeachable offense is a low hurdle for a president focused on his legacy. For a man who came to office with the goal of expanding the role of government to better our lives, it would be quite a comedown to leave office with the main accomplishment of increasing the nation's distrust of government."

"Nowadays, many Americans have forgotten the meaning and traditions of Memorial Day. At cemeteries across the country, the graves of the fallen are sadly ignored, and worse, neglected."

"The Fifth Amendment privilege is not designed to protect the innocent. The innocent do not need protection from the truth (just from the IRS). The privilege is designed to protect the bedrock principle that the burden of proof is always on the government and, derivatively, that a person is never required to prove his innocence. (No surprise, I suppose, that an IRS official is unfamiliar with these foundational pillars of Anglo-American law.) And though Lerner, ever mindful of the cameras, went out of her way to avoid saying so, the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination can be asserted in good faith only if the person has reason to believe a truthful answer could tend to incriminate her. 

"Hopefully, Chairman Issa learns how to do this dance. The music doesn’t sound like it will be stopping any time soon."