Speeches -- even or especially when they are intended to obscure the truth -- reveal something of the convictions of the speech giver and clarify his opinions about the character of his audience.

This week came news that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant burned alive a Jordanian pilot in a metal cage. Thursday morning's National Prayer Breakfast speech represented the first sign that President Obama is prepared to acknowledge a connection between Islam and the violence -- beheadings, mass murders, rape, human slavery, state sponsorship of terrorism, and military conquest -- jihadists are perpetrating in Muhammad’s name.

Progressives are fond of saying that they stand for empathy and compromise, and are quick to blame conservatives for polarizing our politics. Their feverish reaction last week to the Supreme Court’s thoughtful 5-4 decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. shows that progressives could use more of the virtues they claim as their own.

Defeated at nearly every level in the 2008 elections, Republicans were supposed to be using the current four-year stretch in purgatory to rethink the issues, redefine themselves as a party, and (most of all) select a charismatic leader to get them back in the game...