We have just lived through a commander-in-chief presidency whose oppressive power and overwhelming hubris would undoubtedly have left (the) early presidents in shock, if not armed revolt. They would have seen George Bush's world - in which strength was the byword of power and weakness an anathema - as the scion of European autocracy.

These were, after all, men wary of armies and military power, who had sacrificed the very idea of executive strength to a tripartite form of government that would, they hoped, have the advantages of resiliency and responsibility. They understood, and embraced, certain limits that Americans may only be waking up to now.