The Democratic left has conceded human rights to the conservatives

The unflattering word often associated with Mr. Obama and human rights is “ambivalence.” When Iranian students took to the streets in 2009, enduring beatings from security men, the president’s muted reaction was noted. So too with the Arab Spring and when Libyans revolted against Moammar Gadhafi. Yes, the administration responded in time but, again, with “ambivalence.”

Now comes a human-rights advocate from central casting: the blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, who showed up unannounced on Uncle Sam’s Beijing doorstep. The U.S. government appeared displeased with Mr. Chen’s ill-timed decision to go over the wall.

Liberals and Democrats who work on human-rights issues won’t like to hear this, but with the Obama presidency, human rights has completed its passage away from the political left, across the center and into its home mainly on the right—among neoconservatives and evangelical Christian activists.