"I am a wartime President." - George W. Bush to Tim Russert before the 2004 Presidential contest.

Four years later and he's still very much a wartime president – it is in fact the most honest thing that can be said about his presidency. The next man or woman who swears the oath of office will inherit W.'s legacy and with it his mantel of Wartime President – none will relish and revel in it the way W. has and does.

Former presidents Abraham Lincoln (suspension of habeas corpus) and Harry S. Truman (seizing privately held steel mills) legitimized extraordinary executive acts as necessitated by wartime emergencies – both caught flak for it and both were rebuked by the courts. Bush has used the undeclared war in Iraq and more nefariously the War on Terror to pull off the most audacious and cynical power grab in the history of the American Presidency.

I don't think it is hyperbole to say that he has managed to blast a lasting crack in what seemed the most solid of American values –  the Constitutional system of checks and balances.

We have been taught and told that the War on Terror knows no single front and must be fought on all fronts at all times. The greatest weapon against terrorism, according to this President, is secrecy. Secret prisons, secret courts, secret wiretaps, secret renditions, secret violations of privacy and civil liberties.

The business of the United States has come to be none of our business. Most disheartening and gut-punching about Bush's strongman tactics is the ease with which he pulled it off. The war mongering was recognized, analyzed and written about from the start – but chest thumping trumps rational argument in a primate world.

The spectacular plotting, execution and images of 9/11 gave terrorism a new brand name – global jihadism.

But terrorism was a paramagnet global reality before 9/11. Modern technology grants any psychotic individual (the sad, the depressed, the lonely, the righteous, the evil, the misguided, the disgruntled) the ability to air their grievances by way of catastrophic violence. (What weapons of mass destruction will the brooding, computer savvy teenager of 2108 be able to manufacture in his bedroom?) The threat of terrorism is a discomfort Earthlings will have to live with forever. Does this then mean that the War on Terrorism must last forever? Does this mean every future U.S. president will be a Wartime President?

The War on Terror is incoherent, little more than a semantic dodge. Just like the War on Drugs and The War on Poverty – the War on Terror is a convenient political slogan that has transformed the Executive branch into something monstrously powerful.

Historically, presidents don't like to relinquish powers that their predecessors gained for the office. The next president, Democrat or Republican, will have a great many difficult choices. None more important than restoring the system of checks and balances – and shining light on undisclosed locations and policies.

The red phone is ringing and it's time for the next President to pick it up on day one and announce that The War on Terror is over. Maybe then we can get back to the business of protecting the United States from future attacks.

- Citizen Voices blogger Chris McConnell is a bookseller, freelance writer, former high school English teacher and odd jobber who lives in La Jolla.