Circa 1764
They hang the man and flog the woman
That steal the goose from off the common
But let the greater villain loose
That steals the common from the goose.
Here is an excerpt from Paul Craig Roberts' article Bush Has Crossed the Rubicon
In effect, Bush is asserting the powers that accrued to Hitler in 1933. His Federalist Society apologists and Department of Justice appointees claim that President Bush has the same power to interpret the Constitution as the Supreme Court. An Alito Court is likely to agree with this false claim.
This is the great issue that is before the country. But it is pushed into the background by political battles over abortion and homosexual rights. Many people fighting to strengthen the executive think they are fighting against legitimizing sodomy and murder in the womb. They are unaware that the real issue is that America is on the verge of elevating its president above the law.
Bush Justice Department official and Berkeley law professor John Yoo argues that no law can restrict the president in his role as commander-in-chief. Thus, once the president is at war – even a vague open-ended "war on terror" - Bush's Justice Department says the president is free to undertake any action in pursuit of war, including the torture of children and indefinite detention of American citizens.
The commander-in-chief role is probably sufficiently elastic to expand to any crisis, whether real or fabricated. Thus has the US arrived at the verge of dictatorship.