From Cobbloviate

"Even the vile, cynical, and mean-spirited Richard Nixon, who used illegal, not to mention unnecessary, means to strengthen his hand as president, did so believing that his expanded power must be legitimized by an overwhelming popular mandate. What we have in Bush, however, is another animal entirely, someone who became president with dubious credentials and under dubious circumstances, but has nonetheless managed with what strikes me as a truly unprecedented kiss-my-butt cocksureness to run roughshod not simply over his 9/11-cowed and dysfunctional Democratic political opposition but over the Constitution and Congress as vital national institutions as well. In addition to the thousands of civilian and military lives he has cost and the countless others that he has effectively ruined, not to mention the financial resources and international goodwill he has squandered, in his ruthless determination to amass and wield the kind of power that exists only above or beyond the law, he has actually left both the office of the presidency and the nation he swore to keep strong far weaker than he found them.