The current (July 20) issue of The New American includes our first congressional scorecard on the 111th Congress, which convened in January. The scorecard, entitled “The Freedom Index,” rates congressmen based on their adherence to constitutional principles of limited government, fiscal responsibility, national sovereignty, and a traditional foreign policy of avoiding foreign entanglements.

When President Barack Obama delivered the commencement address at West Point on May 22, he outlined a vision for an “international order” that would “resolve the challenges of our times” — from “stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and securing nuclear materials” to “combating a changing climate and sustaining global growth.”

President Barack Obama called for a "world without nuclear weapons" when he spoke in Prague on April 5. But nations obviously will not disarm in a vacuum. And so he also called for a “stronger, global regime” that would fill the vacuum and ensure that all nations follow the rules.

NATO celebrated its 60th anniversary during its April 3-4 summit in Strasbourg/Kehl, and President Barack Obama was one of the celebrants. Speaking in Strasbourg, France, on April 3, the new president affirmed U.S. support for the military alliance and for the concept of collective security that undergirds it and ties the fate of our own nation to that of all other NATO members.

“Let me say this as plainly as I can: by August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end,” President Barack Obama announced in his February 27 remarks at Camp Lejeune. “As a candidate for President,” he recalled, “I made clear my support for a timeline of 16 months to carry out this drawdown, while pledging to consult closely with our military commanders upon taking office to ensure that we preserve the gains we’ve made and protect our troops. Those consultations are now complete, and I have chosen a timeline that will remove our combat brigades over the next 18 months.” That is, 19 months after taking office.

Addressing the Saban Forum on December 5, President George W. Bush stated: "It is true, as I've said many times, that Saddam Hussein was not connected to the 9/11 attacks."

The U.S. Constitution assigns the power to declare war to Congress. The North Atlantic Treaty issued by the United States and other founding members of NATO in 1949 states that an attack on any member of the military alliance must be viewed as an attack on all of the members. By becoming a party to NATO, our government subverted the congressional war power, for now an attack on any one of a group of nations would pull the United States into a war with or without a congressional declaration.

Vermont became the first state to legalize same-sex “marriage” by legislative action, when on April 7 the state legislature overrode Gov. Jim Douglas’ veto of the day before. A two-thirds majority vote was required to override the veto, and the override succeeded by a vote of 23-5 in the state Senate and 100-49 in the House.

Dr. Duke Pesta (left) received his M.A. in Renaissance literature from John Carroll University and his Ph.D. in Shakespeare and Renaissance literature from Purdue University. He has taught at major research institutions and small liberal arts colleges, on a wide variety of subjects at the graduate and undergraduate level, including classes on Shakespeare, Renaissance literature, the Bible, Russian literature, and C.S. Lewis. He has been active in educational reform, and was instrumental in developing and implementing an elective Bible course that is currently available for public high-school students in Texas. He is a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, and the academic director of FreedomProj­ect Education, an online school dedicated to providing students a classical education delivered through state-of-the-art technology. He was interviewed for The New American by Gary Benoit.