Exactly - without the war on drugs, it would be the war on terror, or the war on illegal immigration or the war on pink daisy afghans on lime green couches. It's about the feeling that your position in government makes you more powerful, more right, more entitled.
We as a nation, as a people must make the rule of law holy writ, as it once was, and nothing can supercede it.
I think one of the first things that would help is make government figures more replaceable.
Here in Holland, high placed individuals in the government, and entire governments, are often replaced. If you do something illegal: you're fired. If something bad happens that you were supposed to be preventing: you're fired. If the people lose trust in you: you're fired. If you're making a mess and not being efficient in your job: you're fired.
Basically, as soon as it comes out that you, or someone you are responsible for, is not doing their job properly: you're fired. (or better: you should resign yourself)
(case in point: I skimmed the article (too much melodramatic "Oh we love our dogs!1!" stuff, not enough news, on the first page anyway), but from what I read, this situation would certainly have cost some minister or high-up-police-guy his job here)
End result: you don't get much of the borderline-illegal stuff that is happening in the US government. It still happens of course, but when it comes out the person responsible.. is fired.
I think this different attitude in governing comes from the government structure. The two party system in the US that is in charge in all branches of government leads to the lack of accountability imho. There's always the feeling that, as long as your party holds the majority in the senate/courts/whatever, you can get away with (borderline) illegal stuff.
Compare that with a multi-party system, where any person doing something stupid might be covered by his own party, but all the other parties will try to get you fired, and the other parties combined always have more power than a single party.
(and I personally also like a monarch, who stands outside all the party politics, and just looks at "ok, is it acceptable what happens here?", and who has the power to send the entire government home in case the answer is "no".)
Or concluding: in a system where the power is spread over more groups, people can more easily be fired for stupid things by the other groups, and will thus try to prevent doing said stupid things. In a system where the power sometimes lies with a single group for 4+ years, people might do some more stupid things with the idea that they will be covered by their friends and colleagues.
