Ted Stevens' 40-year itch

Ted Stevens has had remarkable energy and remarkable ambition, and that has brought him remarkable success. First as a federal prosecutor in Fairbanks, my hometown, where he made war on a resilient and well-entrenched criminal element. Then as an indispensable aide to President Eisenhower's secretary of the Interior, Fred Seaton, with whom he teamed up to fight for statehood for Alaska. Later as a member of the Alaska Legislature, where he became the Republican leader in the 1960s. Finally, as a U.S. senator who, after he was appointed in 1968, went on to be elected and served for 40 years -- longer than any Republican in American history.

On Monday, a Washington jury convicted him of seven counts of lying on his financial disclosure forms.

Stevens has probably done more to shape contemporary Alaska than any other single Alaskan. His fingerprints are everywhere in the 49th state. Using the federal budget, especially earmarks, he has delivered billions of dollars to Alaska for roads, bridges, airports, hospitals and clinics -- a list of projects so long, no one can recite it anymore. The money has a generic name: "Stevens money."

Alaskans in turn have showered Stevens with honors and encomiums, not to mention their votes. Stevens has not had a serious opponent since the early '70s -- a circumstance that won him the title "senator for life."

It was as "senator for life" that Stevens ran afoul of the law. After decades in Congress, Stevens answered to no one -- not his constituents, not the media, not his critics in Alaska and Congress. To those who disagreed with his policies and politics, his answer was more or less, "What are you going to do about it?" The answer usually was nothing.

In a democracy, no one should have the power Stevens accumulated. The best word to describe it is imperial. Not that he won every fight. He has been battling environmentalists over opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling for more than 25 years without success.

When Stevens' colleague, Sen. John Warner of Virginia, announced his retirement in 2007, Warner quoted Thomas Jefferson: "There is a fullness of time when men should go, and not occupy too long the ground on which others have the right to advance." Stevens has no use for Jefferson's wisdom.

There is no evidence Stevens ever expected to retire from the Senate. He once told me that if a man took care of himself, he could live to be 120 years old. He apparently expected to do that -- using his seniority on the Appropriations Committee to shovel dollars to his grateful constituents.