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But I'm not sure it's historic. Abraham Lincoln's abuse of executive power as part of "wartime necessity", including suspension of habeaus corpus and effective house arrest of the Governor and preventing the Maryland from meeting, as well as interference in the 1864 presidential elections, really takes the cake on executive abuses of power and is the template for Bush's actions since 911.
As for spying on the populace, LB Johnson-Nixon's "cointelpro" program of spying on individuals and infiltrating and "destabilizing" the SDS and other organizations--left and right--was the parent of Bush's activities, too.
Doesn't justify Bush, or his predecessors. It does render Bush far less "historic" than Lincoln, JOhnson, and Nixon in these abuses of executive authority.
