Turning the Aircraft Carrier on Obama’s ‘Waters of the US’ Rule

Since the days of George Washington, presidents have wished they could make government employees do what they are told. Actually, that frustration is much older than America. Peter the Great once said, “People think I rule Russia, but a thousand bureaucrats rule Russia.”

That’s one reason presidential candidates’ promises are often more difficult to deliver than they expected. It is a common comparison that “moving the bureaucracy is like trying to turn an aircraft carrier.”

Actually, turning an aircraft carrier is far easier than turning a bureaucracy. A modern aircraft...