Gee, somebody finally said "no" to King George

With apologies to the makers of the 1994 film, it has never been "the madness of King George" that troubled me.

No, it was the arrogance, a hubris so awesome and awful you tended to forget George is not, in fact, a king but a president. One might have been forgiven for forgetting, since President George W. Bush has governed much as a King George would have: by fiat and decree.

So the Supreme Court's recent rebuke of the Bush administration and the administration's chastened acceptance of same comes like spring air into a musty room.

Frankly, the substance of the rebuke is of secondary importance to me, though I will recount it here. Late last month, the high court, on a 5-3 vote (Chief Justice John Roberts did not participate), ruled that the president could not, of his sole authority, put detainees at Guantánamo Bay on trial before a military tribunal. The court found that the effort to do so violated both international law and federal statutes, a stinging rejection of the White House's attempt to expand executive authority.

Last week, as a direct result of that ruling, the White House conceded what it has refused to concede for years: that the prisoners at Guantánamo are protected by the provisions of the Geneva Conventions.

But, again, it's not the specifics of the court's ruling that enthuse me. It is, rather, the fact that there's a ruling at all, the fact that somebody finally told Bush no. In so doing, the court reaffirms that which never should have been in question: Even presidents have to play by the rules.

It's an elemental truth, but one that has been under assault and in doubt ever since Team Bush came to office. The most glaring example, of course, is its conduct of the war on terror, where the president has claimed for himself the virtually unfettered right to surveil and detain in violation of established law and custom. The electorate, cowed to silence by fear, watches complacently. Anyone who does dare raise a question or, God forbid, an objection, is shouted down by the president's catchall excuse for excess: Sept. 11.

But it's not just the war that showcases the president's disdain for rules. It's, well ... everything. It's his intrusion into the Terri Schiavo affair, trampling spousal rights and separation of powers. It's the administration's habit of quashing scientific reports that conflict with political needs, walking all over the public's right to know.

It's Bush's Education Department paying a supposed journalist, columnist Armstrong Williams, to say good things about the No Child Left Behind law, stomping basic tenets of journalistic ethics and federal law. It's his administration's habit of providing "news" videos to broadcast outlets, which air them without revealing that the "reporter" works for the White House, thereby violating those same ethics and laws.

Indeed, for all the blather we've suffered these past years about the sins of so-called "activist judges," the plain fact is that what really endangers us is an activist president, a man who evidently believes he can do what he wants when he wants because the rules were written for someone else.

As much as his sycophants like to portray this bullheadedness as evidence of presidential resolve, what it actually illustrates is presidential disdain, the imperial hubris and messianic mind-set of a fellow who believes himself on a mission from the Almighty and therefore, not to be troubled by such small niceties as what is customary or legal.

So the Supreme Court's ruling is about more than just the fate of the Gitmo detainees, important as that is. In the larger picture, it is a stop sign for a runaway administration, a much-needed hitch in the giddyup. And a reminder that this is still a country of laws, not men.

Somebody pass the word to King George: At the end of the day it turns out he's just a president after all.

Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr.'s column appears Sunday on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is: lpitts@herald.com