"They undermined their own legitimacy and left the presidency weaker than when they started."

White House Secrecy Starts to Give
As Congress Intensifies Efforts for Openness, Administration Accedes

By Elizabeth Williamson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 13, 2008; Page A05

After years of hammering on the walls of secrecy surrounding the Bush White House, activists and Congress have begun, slowly, to open some cracks.

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In the waning days of an administration marked by a penchant for confidentiality, open government groups and Congress have redoubled efforts to ensure that the written record of the Bush presidency is not lost to history. They say recent developments show growing irritation with a president who has used national security concerns to draw a veil over the workings of the executive branch and to hoard power for the White House.

Those developments include the declassification of the nation's intelligence budget and new recommendations that the president's daily intelligence briefings be saved as presidential records.

"They're getting exactly the open government results they labored to prevent, and in part because they so overreached," said Thomas Blanton, who heads the National Security Archive at George Washington University. "They could have gotten 90 percent of the extra power they wanted if they went to Congress and the public, but by going for 100 percent and doing it in total secrecy, they undermined their own legitimacy and left the presidency weaker than when they started."

more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/12/AR2008011202308.html?hpid=moreheadlines

"They could have gotten 90 percent of the extra power they wanted if they went to Congress and the public,

if the public was educated. Congress would have given it to them in a heartbeat (except for ego) while no one was looking-it's been done for the last 7 years.

"they undermined their own legitimacy and left the presidency weaker than when they started."

Would not the 'selection' of the POTUS undermine its legitimacy?