Returning the White House to pre-Nixon power ?

On today’s edition of Talk of the Nation, one of the subjects was “What if Sept. 11th had never happened?” During the discussion it was brought up that President Bush and his administration has an unstated goal of returning power to the Executive Branch that had been reduced since the abuses of the Nixon administration. It is pretty easy to observe the gathering of power that has happened since 9/11, but what is interesting is watching how people react to this power grab. What I find interesting is that Bush campaigned in 2000 for smaller government but the government has grown more in his tenure than under any other president since FDR. Why has this not sent off alarms all over the place? Why has this administration been allowed to using signing statements uncontrollably? Why is this administration trying to kill the War Crime Act of 1996 (which Republicans supported) and why is that not raising red flags?

A while back I jokingly made a comparison between Bush and Palpatine and while I don’t think Bush is a murder, I do think he is going out of his way to strengthen the Executive Branch while weakening the Legislative and Judicial Branches. Does this frighten anyone else?