Any one of these actions would justify him as a memorable chief executive. (FDR supplied confidence to overcome Depression qualms and win World War II; Ronald Reagan bounced us back from recession and won the Cold War.) Considered together, Bush's attainments certify that his energetic presidency has landmark significance.

Despite slender experience as a Texas governor and the marginal nature of his election, he has steered away from the timidity of conventional Beltway tactics, exerting the independence that marks great presidencies. He governs as if he had defeated Al Gore by millions of votes. Yes, his jaunty confidence spurs epithets -- that he is a cowboy, of limited intellect, a religious fanatic -- but that proves he drives his opponents to distraction.

Not that I have always agreed with Bush, but a president with deep faith in God does what he believes is best, confident the results will bear him out. Others would have delayed the invasion of Iraq, would probably have dickered to gain more international support. Not Bush. He dealt the cards in brilliant poker-playing fashion reminiscent of FDR, first leaking word that he needed no Capitol Hill vote, then going to the U.N. Security Council -- not to seek approval but to serve notice that he would not be held captive by them. Finally, he tossed the hot potato to Congress, with the words, ''I can't imagine an elected member of the United States Senate or House of Representatives saying, 'I think I'm going to wait for the United Nations to make a decision.''' Congress folded, endorsing Bush's doctrine of preemption four weeks before the Security Council gave in. When the Democrats balked on homeland security, Bush capitalized on it, took their reluctance to the voters in 2002 and won a GOP-majority Senate. That is the kind of guts you get when a president is determined to lead, not follow consensus.

Twice he gave Congress tax cut programs much larger than it was prepared to accept. The liberals growled about favors for the rich, but Bush has won. The unemployment rate today is 5.6 percent, with 1.4 million civilian jobs created in the past year.

All the while, the United States has been beset with culture wars. His conservative base stirred discontentedly for his delay in espousal of a federal marriage amendment, but he chose the right time. The U.S. Supreme Court threw out the Texas anti-sodomy law; still, he waited on the Massachusetts Supreme Court. Only when it declared that nothing short of gay marriage, not even civil unions, can be accepted, did Bush act, with an amendment of two sentences: the first restricting marriage to the union between a man and a woman, and the second enjoining the courts from imposing a solution.

There have been some mistakes in his administration. I would have wished he had vetoed more, that he had opposed the McCain-Feingold campaign ''reform'' bill that endangers free speech, that he had been more penurious with prescription drug benefits, that he had not allowed himself to be badgered like a defense witness by Tim Russert on ''Meet the Press.'' But overall, Bush has been superb. James Monroe gave us the doctrine of no foreign intrusion in our hemisphere; Reagan the will to overcome the Soviet Union, and Bush the doctrine of preemption to fight terrorism and the will to go it alone if necessary.

The November election will determine whether he shall continue, or whether our security will be left to a President John Kerry who (a) views anti-terrorism as ''primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation'' (b) will raise taxes and (c) will surrender in the culture war. Not since Lincoln vs. McClellan has there been a more pivotal choice. I'll take my stand now: Keep Bush.

How should this newly emerging institution be countered? Impeachment, nullification, interposition, and the use of Article III, Sec. 2 of the Constitution all need to be considered.

The marriage amendment should not be necessary. These actions by San Francisco's mayor and the Massachusetts judiciary are lawless and unconstitutional. We simply cannot amend the constitution every time the left decides to disregard it. We need to hold these officials accountable through impeachment, recall, nullification, interposition and arrest where necessary. It would seem that the publicly elected officials with the responsibility to employ the correctives presently available either lack the will to do so or are paralyzed by an improper interpretation of Marbury vs. Madison.

When oh when will some elected executive officer in some state or federal capacity, in fulfilling his constitutional duty to honestly interpret the constitution (federal or state) just disregard the unconstitutional rulings of any court and dare the legislature to impeach him for it? When will some legislature impeach just ONE judge for an unconstitutional ruling? I am nonplussed by the actions of the Supreme Court of Alabama and their warp speed removal of Chief Justice Ray Moore for fulfilling the requirement of the Alabama constitution for an acknowledgement of God until I juxtaposed it against the down the rabbit hole world of judicial reasoning today. Should you adhere to the original intent of the Founder’s vision for the judiciary, than you become a candidate for unethical maneuverings by a Senate judiciary committee to block your nomination. Should you exceed the bounds of your authority by levying a tax on a school district in Missouri to build a white elephant of a public school, or assume the role of supernumerary legislature and order the passage of a law in defiance of your state constitution allowing that which the electorate has rejected, or discover heretofore unknown rights to privacy lurking in penumbraed emanations, or negate the police powers of the states vis a vis consensual sodomy, or (insert your choice of recent judicial outrage) than you can be hailed by liberal news OP-Ed writers as a “far sighted jurist who is unafraid to re-interpret the constitution for a new reality of the 21st century.”

To say that the courts have the final word on the constitutionality of a law NO MATTER WHAT THEY RULE is to say that the system of checks and balances expounded upon by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist paper # 81 does not exist any more.

Alan Keyes gave the best summation of this issue that I've heard yet. He said that every branch of government has a duty to honestly interpret the constitution. If the president honestly feels the courts make an unconstitutional and lawless ruling, then the president should disregard that ruling and refuse to enforce the provisions that he felt were blatantly unconstitutional. If the Congress felt the president or the judiciary was egregiously wrong in their decision, then it was their duty to impeach him for it. If the electorate felt that the Congress was wrong for impeaching the president or the failure to impeach him or members of the judiciary, they can remove them at the next election, as well as the president for any presidential actions that they considered wrongful.

Lest anyone consider this formula has a recipe for chaos, then I submit to you there is no chaos worse than an unchecked oligarchic Judiciary. We are not living under the rule of law when judges make law up to suit their whims has they engage in objective based adjudication. Can you spell USURPATION?

I happen to agree with those statements and have made that a central point of my campaign for the U.S. Senate. The Tribune disagrees with me and has taken me to task for my positions ("Scare tactics on immigration," Editorial, Feb. 26). While I don't hope to change your mind, I would like to address questions you raised of fact and tone.

My statement that 10,000 illegal immigrants a day are entering our country is based on a study published by a respected professor from the University of Michigan in the academic journal Population and Environment. His study revealed that from 2.95 million to 5.45 million illegal aliens enter this country every year. Interestingly the study was commissioned by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

While all of my television ads and five of my six radio commercials talk about illegal immigration in broad terms, one radio commercial did indeed note that people have always come to America for economic opportunity and chastised Mexican President Vicente Fox for denying that economic opportunity for his citizens by his refusal to inaugurate sweeping economic reforms and curtail corruption like he promised.

Freedom House's 2003 report on Mexico reveals that some $2.3 billion of Mexico's economic production still goes to officials for bribes, with the poorest families paying nearly 14 percent of their income in bribes. Violent attacks against reporters and labor and peasant leaders remain an ongoing problem.

The Heritage Foundation reports that foreign investment is still prohibited in retail trade, gasoline, broadcasting (other than cable TV), ground passenger transport, tourism and many professional services.

This hardly represents a free and thriving political or economic foundation necessary to build a successful middle class.

Furthermore I'm not just talking about the problem; I've proposed solutions to help dampen further illegal immigration.

Briefly, in addition to opposing President Bush's immigration proposal (which I believe is a blanket amnesty in disguise), I have proposed that we do the following:

Limit automatic citizenship only to those children born to legal residents of the United States.

Divert foreign aid in proportion to each country's percentage of illegal aliens to state and local governments for costs incurred by illegal aliens in their area.

Increase funding for local law enforcement so illegal aliens arrested for crimes can be turned over to American immigration officials for deportation.

Require proof of citizenship for first-time applicants for drivers' licenses.

Withhold federal funds from states that allow illegal aliens to pay in-state tuition.

Will this solve the entire problem? Hardly. Is it a specific plan backed up by solid facts that will address the problem? I believe so, and I will continue to offer this and other thoughts in a straightforward manner for the voters' consideration.

==>Thomas Jefferson