What happens when South Korean students take a close look at American democracy. By Peter Berkowitz.

The Hoover Institution hosted its annual Board of Overseers’ summer meeting during July 9–11, 2013.

The program began on Tuesday evening with before-dinner remarks by Paul D. Clement, a partner at Bancroft PLLC. Clement served as the forty-third solicitor general of the United States from June 2005 until June 2008. He has argued more than sixty-five cases before the US Supreme Court. During Clement’s speech, titled “Federalism in the Roberts Court,” he talked about the revitalization of federalism in the Rehnquist court “imposing some limits on the federal government’s power vis-a-vis the states.”

“Were we right to go to war in Iraq?” With this question as a point of departure, Peter Robinson explores with Ambassador Bolton our foreign policy successes and failures during the Bush years and assesses the current challenges from the usual suspects: North Korea, Russia, and Iran. Bolton sees a power shift in the Middle East that would be fundamental, calamitous, and irreversible should Iran get nuclear weapons. (36:26 ) Video transcript

Richard Epstein, the Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, discusses the rule of law and how it applies to alleged Boston bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev.

In this wide-ranging interview, bouncing from the comic to the serious and back again, Christopher Buckley comments on the new media, politics, Republicans, the war, spending, McCain, Obama, and American life. After rating the speechifying of Obama, McCain, Palin, and Biden, he concludes with reflections on life with William F. Buckley. (29:15) Video transcript

AUDIO ONLY

In 1997, Margaret Thatcher asked Charles Moore (also known as Baron Moore of Etchingham) to write her biography, under two conditions: that she would never read the manuscript and that the work would appear only after her death. Twenty-four years later, Moore has just published the third and final volume of Herself Alone: The Authorized Biography. In this conversation, Peter Robinson and Moore discuss Thatcher’s final years as prime minister and her life out of office.

Sowell describes the critical differences between interests and visions. Interests, he says, are articulated by people who know what their interests are and what they want to do about them. Visions, however, are the implicit assumptions by which people operate. In politics, visions are either “constrained” or “unconstrained.” A closer look at the statements of both McCain and Obama reveals which “vision” motivates their policy positions, particularly as they pertain to the war, the law, and economics. (37:38) Video transcript

The balance of virtue and rules flaunting in modern society.