In 1973, liberal historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. released a book entitled The Imperial Presidency.  He updated it in 2004 with a new introduction, in which he wrote:

The American Constitution, the book argues, envisages a strong presidency within an equally strong system of accountability.  When the constitutional balance is upset in favor of presidential power and at the expense of presidential accountability, the presidency can be said to become imperial.

Schlesinger, being the liberal scholar that he was, used this term as a cudgel to wield against every Republican president (others, like Clinton, got easier treatment).  But there is no question that we are watching the rise of the most imperial president in American history.

The President's latest proposal to effect the reconciliation process in order to pass his health care agenda is merely a symptom of an underlying ill.  President Obama believes that he alone is capable of making policy, he alone is capable of implementing policy, and he alone is capable of understanding the vagaries of the universe that require his crystallization.  In this quest, the legislature and democratic processes are superfluous to the grandure that he embodies. 

Which is why he's now writing the health care bill.  Everyone seems to have overlooked one little problem in the details of his new legislation, which raise taxes in several places: in nationalizing one-sxith of the US economy, he is now originating legislation, a practice prohibited by the Constitution.  Here's what the Constitution says in Article I, Section 7:

All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

How exactly does this translate into President Obama stating this today on the WhiteHouse.gov website?

Over the past year the House and the Senate have been working on an effort to provide health insurance reform that lowers costs, guarantees choices, and enhances quality health care for all Americans. Building on that year-long effort, the President has now put forth a proposal that incorporates the work the House and the Senate have done and adds additional ideas from Republican members of Congress.

Never mind the lies here (it is a lie that he has incorporated "additional ideas from Republican members of Congress").  Focus instead on the massive arrogance it takes to grab two separate bills and unify them under the executive rubric.  This is not what the framers intended.  But of course, Obama doesn't give a damn about that.  His is an imperial presidency, pure and simple.  And he wants us to be his subjects.