Senators as law professors

Supreme Court hearings, like so many other congressional forums, give members of Congress a chance to stand in the shoes of others, to be legal beagles, bean counters for budgetary problems or even part-time secretaries of state. This is the week to play lawyer, to throw arcane concepts of law around as they interrogate Sonia Sotomayor.

Sotomayor got a whiff of this on opening day when one of the Senate's most senior members, Arlen Specter, served notice he'd cross-examine her closely on what her standard would be on the court -- "the traditional standard, or congruence and proportionality."

This is all in keeping with Congress's constitutionally-mandated role of Great Inquisitor.

It also feeds a syndrome -- large-than-life egos -- that has perplexed presidents over history. George H.W. Bush once famously groused that it would be easier to set America's foreign policy if he didn't have univited help from 535 secretaries of state.

Senators can do this because, in part, they have ample help from handsome taxpayer-paid staffs. A constitutional tug of war between the executive and legislative branch over war powers has gone on seemingly endlessly and has resulted in actions like the Gulf of Tonkin resolution -- Vietnam -- and the authorization for war in Iraq, with Bush's son as president, that have come back to haunt the would-be foreign policy gurus.

The second-guess system was built into the Constitution by the Framers who were worried about how well they've divided up the powers among the executive, legislative and judiciary. How ironic that no small part of Sotomayor's questioning this week will go precisely to that point: How will she rule in cases that pit executive authority against congressional prerogative?

-Merrill Hartson, AP editor, Washington