OMG: Rice quoting Bush quoting Nixon

On July 19/09 I had written about Condoleezza Rice explaining what she had done with respect to waterboarding. It was reported that she said “When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.” Maureen Dowd in writing the article said that this was almost quoting Nixon's logic. Well, I just watched that part of the Frost interview of Nixon dealing with Watergate, and there was no "almost" about it. Nixon said flat out " I'm saying that when the President does it, that means it's not illegal." The blatantness of this absurdity just astounds me! Nixon was bad enough, but haven't they learned anything over the last decades?