The Constitution in "Quotes"

“If there is one basic element in our Constitution, it is civilian control of the military...If I allowed him to defy the civil authorities in this manner, I myself would be violating my oath to uphold and defend the Constitution."

President Harry Truman on the decision to fire GEN Douglas MacArthur as commander of UN forces in the Korean War, 1951

The Constitution v. "Oklahoma's Values"

Pity poor Brad Henry. An Oklahoma Democrat and the panhandle state's 26th governor, he has become the unlikely center of the abortion argument nationwide. Like many state legislatures -- eleven and counting says The New York Times in an article published today -- Oklahoma's has sought to put pressure on abortion rights by making it that much more difficult for women to get what remains a legal procedure protected by federal law. No less than eight abortion-themed bills have been introduced in the Oklahoma legislature recently, including several very modern ones like that barring an abortion performed because of the gender of the fetus or barring "wrongful life" lawsuits where a child is born with an unanticipated birth defect which had it been known to the mother before the child's birth would have prompted her to terminate the fetus.