Do President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have no idea of what made the founding of this country unique? It was the people’s deeply held belief that arbitrary rule by the state is an evil to be resisted at all costs. Even early America’s conservative elements, who hoped to remain in the British Empire, finally went over to the revolutionists’ side when King George III accelerated his arbitrary decrees governing the American people. Nothing indicts Bush-Cheney as profoundly as their displayed contempt for habeas corpus. I have no doubt that if they thought they could get away with it, they’d suspend it for citizens too.

Note well: the Constitution does not distinguish citizens from noncitizens. If the gang-run-amok in the White House can suspend habeas corpus for aliens, it can do so for the rest of us.

The threat to Americans from terrorism is minuscule compared with the threat from these megalomaniacs.