Return of accountability

10/17/2006

Editorial
Rutland Herald

Republicans at the national level are using Sen. Patrick Leahy as a bogeyman, meant to scare Republican voters into going to the polls in November.

If Republicans don't keep control of the Senate, they say, Big Bad Pat will become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and then we'll be sorry.

In a speech on Saturday at Vermont Law School, Leahy showed why the nation would take a step toward redeeming itself and the values enshrined in the Constitution, if Leahy were to rise to the chairmanship.

Leahy has gained a national profile mainly through his skeptical questioning of President Bush's Supreme Court nominees.

On that topic he was clear in his speech to the law students on Saturday. Should the Democrats gain a majority in the Senate, "there will be no more rubber stamping," he said. "We'll have real oversight, and we'll demand that judges be more qualified."

But it is Bush's record on torture and illegal detentions that gets Leahy's emotions roiling. Especially galling was passage by Congress of a bill sought by Bush allowing him the power to hold people in jail at his discretion and without oversight by the courts.

It is galling on two levels. First, it shows how supine Congress has become. After making a show of standing up to Bush, the supposedly independent Republican senators, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and John Warner, caved in and supported a bill throwing out the right of defendants to a day in court.

"The Congress itself is unwilling to serve as a check and balance on an overly aggressive executive," Leahy said, "fostering a palpable loss of accountability and effectiveness in what government decides and how government performs."

Accountability and effectiveness go together. "With no checks and balances," Leahy said, "things spin out of control."

But Bush's recent record is galling on a deeper level. It represents a violation of the fundamental values of our democracy. "This law," Leahy said, "could make any limits against torture and cruel and inhuman treatment obsolete, because they will be unenforceable. This is wrong, this is unconstitutional, and undermines America's core ideals."

Once upon a time, it was conservatives who stood for preservation of "core ideals," for law and order. But it is this radically conservative administration that is behaving in a lawless way, pushing through Congress laws designed to hide abuses already committed at Guantanamo and elsewhere.

If it is the aim of Republicans to continue to hide the dirty secrets of the Bush administration, including the torture and imprisonment of innocents, then they are right to fear the appointment of Leahy as chairman of Judiciary.

But if the American people are interested in a return of accountability to the operations of the government and a renewal of respect for the values of the Constitution, then Leahy's abhorrence of the recent actions by the president and the Republican Congress suggests there is reason to hope.

With Leahy as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the nation could gain new lessons in the meaning of constitutional law. At the least, members of the administration determined to flout the law would finally have someone willing to call them to account.

Link to article