What an odd question. "If the government wants to do a bad thing, shouldn't they do it a good way?" Doesn't the willingness to do a bad thing kind of imply that they will be willing to do it a bad way?

Not really. If you look at the intention of Barack, he totally wanted to codify into law, using normal channels and the full power of democracy the detention, execution and "enhanced interrogation" of WoT suspects.

Not sure what is worse. Democratically passing new bad laws or subverting the constitution via underhanded techniques. I guess the former is depressing and the latter shows mal-intent?

Burn down the Reichstag or get 3/4 majority to nullify the 4th?

I'd argue that it should be a constitutional offense to weaken the constitution using non-constitutional means. Attempting to rewrite the rules of the game during gameplay should get you autobanned by punkbuster.