had a spell of days that really got hot and sticky, but now we're in a better pattern (it's nice and cool at night)

Probably the French guy that Clinton pardoned was just as bad, but this Scooter Libby sentence commute that Bush did yesterday makes me want  to rethink some major things.  The US Constitution has always been advertised (via propaganda as I and every other usian grew up i'm now realising) as a truly amazing document. Certainly the idea of division of powers was pretty revolutionary at the time, and I'm thankful that it got written the way it did.  But when each branch of gov't essentially becomes an island and is able to beat all attackers off from its shores, I don't think that serves the country at all.  In my own mind, as a kid when I was taught this stuff, I always had a hard time with the idea that the framers didn't trust the populace (think about the electoral college).  I'm wondering if there's a way to reframe gov't where there truly is a trust of the populace.  The details I think would need to be quite complex (because we still want checks and balances), but maybe it's possible...