Leahy has historic opportunity

12/03/2006

Editorial
Barre Montpelier Times Argus

Friends and staff of Sen. Patrick Leahy are already talking about the opportunity now before him to establish a legacy that will place him among the most important senators in Vermont history.

It will not be about the pork he is able to secure from his position on the Appropriations Committee or his long-term work for the interests of the state's dairy farmers. It will be his legacy as a defender of the U.S. Constitution.

Leahy has been almost giddy since the elections last month, with the prospect that he will become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But the challenges before him are serious indeed.

As chairman he will have the power to focus on the numerous ways that the Bush administration has worked to skirt and undermine the constitutional limits on executive power, straying into activities that might be judged illegal or even criminal. A successful effort to rein in the abuses of the Bush administration will place Leahy in the history books alongside Sen. Ralph Flanders of Vermont, who was instrumental in challenging the abuses of Sen. Joseph McCarthy -- except Leahy's challenge is even greater and the abuses more serious than those of the senator from Wisconsin whose name has become synonymous with an era of thuggery and paranoia.

Leahy appears to understand what he is up against. Already he has sent letters to the Justice Department renewing numerous requests for information on a variety of programs and activities that are constitutionally dubious. President Bush has promised to foster a spirit of bipartisanship in his dealings with the new Democratic Congress, but so far the Justice Department and the White House show every sign that they will resist Leahy's efforts to let the sun shine on the doings of the federal government.

Leahy will have to focus both on the specifics of administration activities and on the broader legal and political philosophy the administration has offered in its own defense.

Thus, Leahy has sought documents that would shed light on the administration's decisions related to the detention of prisoners and on unauthorized domestic spying. Of broader concern is the claim of sweeping executive power used by the administration to place itself virtually above the law. Leahy's greatest contribution would be to expose the danger to our constitutional system of Bush's claims and to help re-establish proper limits on the reach of executive power.

This work requires the perspicacity and determination of a statesman. The work of the Judiciary Committee in investigating these issues must not be seen by the public as an effort to settle political scores. The Bush administration will try to cloak its practices in secrecy on the basis of national security, and Leahy will have the job of discerning the difference between legitimate national security concerns and bogus claims designed for political self-protection. There is plenty of precedent for the bogus, going all the way back to the Pentagon Papers.

The struggle over Bush administration abuses will be of the utmost seriousness. It is likely that Bush has sought legal justification for secret detention and "alternative" interrogation methods as a way to cover up torture and illegal imprisonment that could put members of the administration in legal jeopardy. A policy of torture, which apparently received approval at high levels of government, brings the administration close to the territory of war crimes. As Leahy and his committee get close to that territory, the political warfare will not be pretty.

It will be important for Leahy to maintain a focus on the legal and constitutional issues at stake: that the United States stands for human rights, the rule of law and a system of checks and balances that applies to the president even in a time of war. The American people will be grateful to him if he can establish that a democracy need not resort to the ruthless, lawless methods of a panicked bully. And Vermonters will remember him among the handful of Vermont's greatest statesmen.

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