THE TORCH BURNS ON

"Thank God." Those were the words of Senator Robert Torricelli last week after federal prosecutor Mary Jo White announced she would not indict him for campaign finance violations--in this case, good old-fashioned bribes stemming from contributions to his 1996 Senate campaign.

In a post-September 11 political climate that has shifted rather dramatically in favor of Republicans, Washington Democrats clutched onto the Torricelli news with particular relief. They believe Torricelli, long considered one of the Senate's most vulnerable Democrats in 2002, will now breeze to reelection.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle says his confidence in Torricelli was "justified" by the decision not to indict, and a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee predicted an "overwhelming" victory for The Torch next November. They may be right. Republicans have not yet found a serious candidate to challenge Torricelli. And, perhaps not surprisingly, the New Jersey Democrat has built himself a sizable campaign account--about $3 million some 11 months out.

But wait! Federal prosecutors have referred the case to the Senate Ethics Committee where, with the past as our guide and a one-seat Democratic majority, we can no doubt expect a prompt and thorough investigation of the very serious charges against Torricelli.

Can't we? After all, Senate Democrats have been the chief advocates of tighter campaign finance restrictions, the ones so popular with editorial writers. And many of the facts in this case are not in dispute.

Consider: David Chang, a New Jersey businessman, pleaded guilty in June 2000 to giving Torricelli $53,700 in illegal campaign contributions. In addition, Chang has testified that he gave Torricelli "three or four" Rolex watches, a large-screen TV, Tiffany's cufflinks, and ten Italian suits.

Several New Jersey store owners have corroborated Chang's claims, and a former Chang employee says she once delivered an envelope filled with cash to the senator.

So what did Chang get in return? According to several reports in the New York Times, Torricelli in 1999 actively supported Chang's attempt to buy a South Korean insurance company, worth an estimated $1.5 billion. Torricelli, the Times reported, wrote letters on Chang's behalf to top Korean officials.

And on at least one occasion, Torricelli "brought Mr. Chang along to an official briefing in Seoul in 1999 in order to lobby" the South Korean finance minister on Chang's behalf. According to the Times, "the U.S. ambassador later apologized for Mr. Torricelli's actions."

In the unlikely event that the probe gets serious attention from Ethics Committee chairman Harry Reid, who donated $500 to Torricelli's legal defense fund, Torricelli has a ready-made excuse: The gifts--which Torricelli has never directly denied taking--came from a friend. Congressional ethics guidelines let politicians accept gifts from friends. That argument might get a little complicated, as Torricelli's lawyers have lately taken to calling Chang a "pathological liar."

But this is Washington, where people are often friends with pathological liars, especially ones with money.

TO HECK WITH HIM

Last week, Christopher Caldwell penned a brief account for our website (weeklystandard.com) of the affair of Walid Shater, the Arab-American Secret Service agent who was booted off American Airlines Flight 363 in Baltimore. Shater was bound for Dallas, where he was to join George W. Bush's security detail at the president's Texas ranch.

Shater claims he was racially profiled. He has been in contact with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which has lodged a complaint against American Airlines. His lawyer says Shater will sue unless the airline apologizes and gives its employees anti-discrimination training. The president gave conditional backing to Shater, telling reporters, "If he was treated that way because of his ethnicity, that will make me madder than heck."

The pilot responsible for Shater's ouster says he found irregularities in the paperwork that agents must fill out if they seek to board an airplane armed. The pilot and other American Airlines personnel say that, when asked to leave the plane, Shater became "very hostile," made "loud, abusive comments," and threatened, if he were not let on the plane, to use "the powers of the White House."

This last, if true, is the most troubling aspect of the whole affair. For an armed agent of the Treasury Department to demand access to an airplane by claiming to be acting with the authority of the White House, as if he were some American-style Tonton Macoute, is an offense to citizens of a free country.