Equal power failure

NO CONGRESSIONAL dander was raised when the Bush Pentagon incarcerated hundreds of uncharged men at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Spaniel-like, the lawmakers hustled up legislation that attempted to legitimize some of the illegal jailings long after the fact.

Did electronic surveillance of American citizens, in direct violation of the law Congress passed in 1978 setting clear guidelines for such activity, provoke outrage on Capitol Hill? No problem, said the leaders. We will allow the attorney general to duck questions on it, and promote the general who implemented it.

How about the shameful torture and humiliation of prisoners in Iraq? Congress barely worked up enough gumption to express its disapproval. And then, when President Bush attached a ``signing statement" to the anti-torture legislation, saying he really wasn't buying it, Congress yawned.

And when the Globe's Charlie Savage reported that Bush had added such statements to more than 750 bills, claiming the right to disobey their mandates, Congress tucked in its tail and went to sleep.

Or so it seemed.

Now it is clear that the lawmakers simply viewed these actions as trifling infringements of their prerogatives. They were just waiting for the right issue to come along so that they could assert -- boldly and forcefully -- the co-equality of the legislative branch. They were looking for something they considered big. And they found it.

One of their own, Representative William J. Jefferson, Democrat of Louisiana, was accused of taking a $100,000 bribe, $90,000 of which was found in his freezer. When the response to FBI subpoenas was slow, agents got a warrant and raided his Capitol office. Republican and Democratic leaders howled in unison, but for what reason?

First, it is pretty clear that Congress has no immunity from criminal searches. The Constitution does say members are ``privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session," but not in cases of ``treason, felony, and breach of the peace." Floor debate is protected; bribery is not.

Second, the chorus of objections to the FBI raid was a bipartisan public relations blunder. The public has a low enough opinion of the skul duggery that goes on all over Washington without Congress officially declaring Capitol Hill a cop-free zone.

Most frustrating is Congress's choice of irritants. Many Americans will cheer if Congress stands up on two feet and defends its constitutionally sacrosanct right to legislate. This right is under serious attack, but the attack is coming from the president of the United States, not from a few FBI gumshoes.