If men were angels

georgia10 at the DailyKos says:

James Madison observed the following about the need for a system of checks and balances:

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

FISA was passed as means of governmental self-control. It was passed by Republicans and Democrats alike who realized that whoever occupied the Oval Office would be surrounded not by a halo, but by temptation to abuse that great power bestowed upon them by the public trust.

We are a nation of laws precisely because we are governed by men, by those whose judgment is fallible and whose priorities do not always coincide with those of the American people. And in our fight against terrorists, we cannot cloak our leaders in shrouds of immunity while they commit grave offenses against us; to do so would be to masquerade men as angels, Presidents as kings, and the Constitution as a defunct document rather then the Supreme Law of the Land.