Centuries of unchecked power wielded by oft-feuding English kings, church leaders and wealthy landholders led eventually to the need for limitations on regal power, and thus the Magna Carta Liberatum, the Great Charter of Freedoms of 1215. The Magna Carta founded basic human freedoms such as habeas corpus, which compels any power holding a person for a crime to bring that person to a court, and show them the evidence against them.

America's founders appear to have opposed great concentrations of power and held great respect for the ideals of human freedom, creating a Bill of Rights defining the freedoms of the People, and a Constitution employing numerous checks and balances such as a "Separation of Powers" among the legislative, the executive and judicial branches.

The executive branch, led by the president, enforces the law. Article IV defines the "…Constitution, and the Laws of the United States…and…Treaties…under the Authority of the United States…as the…supreme Law of the Land…any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."

The Congress' Senate and House of Representatives declare war, write legislation, and check presidential power through the "power of the purse," or control over the money. The judicial branch checks power by interpreting legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by the president. The Supreme Court decides cases related to the Federal Government and interstate disputes and can declare legislation or executive action unconstitutional.

Article II, Section 4 states, "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."

In 1861, with battle lines at Bull Run just 30 miles from Washington DC, President Lincoln revoked habeas corpus. Although the Supreme Court ruled the revocation unconstitutional, Lincoln denied habeas corpus until Congress legalized the revocation in 1863 (apparently without consulting Article I, which prohibits "ex post facto" laws). Unlike President Lincoln, President Bush's claims of extra legal power are numerous, and extend beyond the Constitution, violating US law, international law, and ratified treaties. Not even tenuous precedent allows Congress to retroactively legalize President Bush and Vice President Cheney's violations of the Geneva Conventions forbidding aggressive war and torture, both of which the conventions define as "war crimes."

Sadly, the legislative and judicial branches have not challenged President Bush's astonishing violations of the rule of law, his regular use of "signing statements" documenting his intention to ignore (and ostensibly violate) legislation he signs into law, or the numerous actions through which his administration appears to recklessly and contemptuously violate the Constitution, US and international law. In contrast, President Clinton faced impeachment, (not conviction) for allegedly lying in a lawsuit about consensual sex.

Could the founders have imagined one president being impeached for lying about a personal matter in a civil suit while his successor appears immune from any responsibility whatsoever after being repeatedly caught red-handed in appalling official lies and egregious violations of law?
Just as the impeachment of President Clinton exposed other politicians' extra-marital affairs, the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney might finally collapse the apparent concerted destruction of all checks on governmental power by corrupt "representatives" and judges who appear to be systematically destroying America's most basic founding ideals.