Joseph Bessette

The Obama administration is shaping up to be one of the most consequential in recent American history. In the revised edition of this book, now including new two chapters assessing the Obama administration and federalism and Obama as commander-in-chief, a diverse group of presidential scholars steps back from the partisan debate to consider the Obama presidency through the lens of the U. S. Constitution’s theory, structure, and powers. This timely look at the Obama presidency establishes a constitutional yardstick of interest to scholars of the presidency, constitutional thought, and American political thought.

The Obama administration is shaping up to be one of the most consequential in recent American history. In this book, a diverse group of presidential scholars step back from the partisan debate to consider the first two years of the Obama presidency through the lens of the U. S. constitution's theory, structure, and powers. They ask how Barack Obama understands and exercises the President's formal constitutional and informal powers and responsibilities of the president, from foreign policy and public policy to his political leadership of the Democratic party and the nation as a whole. This timely first look at the Obama presidency establishes a constitutional yardstick of interest to scholars of the presidency, constitutional thought, and American political thought.

The Catholic Church has in recent decades been associated with political efforts to eliminate the death penalty. It was not always so. This timely work reviews and explains the Catholic Tradition regarding the death penalty, demonstrating that it is not inherently evil and that it can be reserved as a just form of punishment in certain cases. Drawing upon a wealth of philosophical, scriptural, theological, and social scientific arguments, the authors explain the perennial teaching of the Church that capital punishment can in principle be legitimate--not only to protect society from immediate physical danger, but also to administer retributive justice and to deter capital crimes. The authors also show how some recent statements of Church leaders in opposition to the death penalty are prudential judgments rather than dogma. They reaffirm that Catholics may, in good conscience, disagree about the application of the death penalty. Some arguments against the death penalty falsely suggest that there has been a rupture in the Church's traditional teaching and thereby inadvertently cast doubt on the reliability of the Magisterium. Yet, as the authors demonstrate, the Church's traditional teaching is a safeguard to society, because the just use of the death penalty can be used to protect the lives of the innocent, inculcate a horror of murder, and affirm the dignity of human beings as free and rational creatures who must be held responsible for their actions. By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed challenges contemporary Catholics to engage with Scripture, Tradition, natural law, and the actual social scientific evidence in order to undertake a thoughtful analysis of the current debate about the death penalty.