The disclosure of inappropriate, probably illegal, access of government passport files for Senators Obama and Clinton by the State Department highlights an insidious undercurrent in this Administration. It is the presumption that they are above the law, beyond basic ethics of professional conduct and unaccountable.

The information garnered was probably of little import. No matter. It's the attitude that's troubling.

From President Bush's signing statements on Congressional legislation, to Paul Bremer's colonial style reign in post Saddam Iraq, to then FEMA Director Brown's desertion during the Katrina disaster the message is clear. As long as the sound bites sell, we make our own rules and standards of conduct be damned.

Apparently mid-level State Department employees 'hacked' the passport files. And, to be fair, two have been fired. Yet the prevailing lack of standards represented at the higher echelons at the White House makes this kind of thing possible throughout the Administration. Not only possible, but probable.

That represents a culture of rogue lawlessness. Getting caught is more the problem than the behavior. And when caught - lie, misdirect, resign or commute judicial sentences.

Nixon's Watergate was well named "a cancer on the Presidency". The Bush Administration is a cancer on America.

We will be well done with it in '09.