"I think in his actions and the actions in which he has joined, he has made the court an arm of the Republican Party," Leahy said.

Leahy said he voted for Roberts because he knew Roberts was going to be confirmed anyway and did not want a party-line vote that would encourage Roberts to believe that he was "an appointment of the Republican Party."

But that is what has happened anyway, Leahy said.

"I love to hear Republicans give lip service to the ideals of the Founding Fathers and then ignore them when it serves their purposes," he said. "They (the Republicans) say they don't want an activist Supreme Court, but this is the most activist Supreme Court we have ever seen, running roughshod over the Constitution, like Plessy v. Ferguson did."

In that landmark case in 1896, the Supreme Court upheld racial segregation in America under the "separate but equal" doctrine. This was repudiated in 1954 by the court in another landmark decision, Brown v. Board of Education.

In a 5-4 decision a few weeks ago, the Roberts court ruled that race cannot be a factor in the assignment of children to public schools, even when the purpose is to desegregate those schools.

"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race," Roberts wrote in his decision.

Leahy said: "I am not sure the president realizes what he has done with the court. He was told by Dick Cheney and others, 'This is what you are going to do.'"

Asked to compare Bush with the other presidents he has served with, Leahy stated: "He does not measure up to any of the others.

I have never seen any introspection in him, with the possible exception of the comprehensive immigration bill, and election-year politics pushed him away from that. Our vice president has an inordinate amount of control over him."

Leahy says that when he talks to constituents, he finds "there is a real disquietude toward this administration from both Republicans and Democrats on everything from the environment to the war. They feel that nobody is listening, that the president is not listening to anybody except a small group at the White House, and that he is detached from the country."

Leahy blames many of the current ills on Congress, however.

"It was because they (the White House) had a rubber-stamp Congress for six years, a Congress in their corner," Leahy said. "The Senate allowed the White House to replace one majority leader with another! Bill Frist is a very nice guy, but he didn't have any idea how to lead the Senate. I can't imagine the Senate allowing the White House to dictate who the majority leader is going to be."

In late 2002, Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott was replaced by Frist, a senator from Tennessee, after Lott made remarks that seemed to support America's segregated past.

"Too many members of the House and Senate think their greatest achievement is to win office," Leahy said. "Our greatest achievement is to do something good when we get here."

Leahy's office is unlike many other offices on Capitol Hill in that it contains no autographed pictures of Leahy standing with famous people.

Instead, it contains pictures that Leahy, a published photographer, has taken. The centerpiece -- placed, Leahy says, so he can stare into it every day from his desk -- is a haunting one of a man he met in a refugee camp in El Salvador in 1982.

"Sometimes Washington changes people," Leahy said. "We get a sense of our own importance. But I strongly believe the Senate should be and has been the conscience of the nation."