Op-Ed ColumnistHow Character Corrodes    * comments (569)    * Sign In to E-Mail    * Print    * ShareClose          o Linkedin          o Digg          o Facebook          o Mixx          o MySpace          o Yahoo! Buzz          o PermalinkoArticle Tools Sponsored ByBy MAUREEN DOWDPublished: May 2, 2009WASHINGTONSkip to next paragraphFred R. Conrad/The New York TimesMaureen DowdGo to Columnist Page »Readers’ Comments    Readers shared their thoughts on this article.    * Read All Comments (569) »How quaint.The Republicans are concerned about checks and balances.The specter of Specter helping the president have his way with Congress has actually made conservatives remember why they respected the Constitution in the first place. Senator Mitch McConnell, the leader of the shrinking Republican minority, fretted that there was a “threat to the country” and wondered if people would want the majority to rule “without a check or a balance.”Senator John Thune worried that Democrats would run “roughshod” and argued that Americans wanted checks and balances. Senator Judd Gregg mourned that “there’s no checks and balances on this massive expansion on the size of government.”Bill Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, tried to put the best face on it, noting, “This will make it easier for G.O.P. candidates in 2010 to ask to be elected to help restore some checks and balances in Washington.”This is quite touching, given that the start of the 21st century will be remembered as the harrowing era when an arrogant Republican administration did its best to undermine checks and balances. (Maybe when your reign begins with Bush v. Gore, a Supreme heist that kissed off checks and balances, you feel no need to follow the founding fathers’ lead.)After so many years of watching a White House upend laws, I now listen raptly when President Obama plays the constitutional law professor. He was asked at his news conference Wednesday night ab