Suppose a public official holds an office with limited powers. The limits are not in doubt. They are written down, and the official has never denied them. Yet the office acts, case by case, in ways that are hard to square with the limits. Then, in a series of measured public addresses, the official sets out an account of the office under which its powers exceed those limits. The account is careful and scholarly, delivered to expert audiences. No one objects, because it is offered as observation, a reflection on how things have come to work.
