Skip to main content

Distributed for University Press of New England

Senator Leahy

A Life in Scenes

Having vaulted to a position in the United States Senate at the tender age of thirty-four, Patrick Leahy now claims the longest tenure of any member of that institution still serving—and he was third in line for the presidency when the Democrats held control. Few recent American lawmakers have watched history unfold so at such close range; fewer still have influenced it so powerfully. Philip Baruth brings a thriller-like intensity to the most spectacular of those scenes: the 9/11 attack on the US capital, the contentious drafting of the Patriot Act, the ensuing anthrax attacks, and the dramatic 2014 opening of diplomatic ties with Cuba. Throughout, the biography focuses in on Leahy’s meticulous image making, his cultivation of a “Top Cop” persona both in the media and at the ballot box. It is an approach that culminates in simultaneous roles for the lawmaker as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and as the tough-talking “distinguished gentleman” in Christopher Nolan’s acclaimed Dark Knight trilogy of Batman films. Leahy’s improbable success, Philip Baruth argues, in the end lies in his ability both to be and to play the top cop not only in post-Watergate Vermont, but in a post-9/11 America viciously divided between the red states and the blue.

344 pages | 6 1/4 x 9 1/4 | © 2017

Biography and Letters


View all books from University Press of New England

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments • Prologue • Introduction: Leahy, Media, Anthrax, Batman • PART I. LEAHY BEGINS • The Origin Story • The Accidental State’s Attorney • The Children’s Crusade: The Senate Race of 1974 • Ninety-Ninth of One Hundred • PART II. THE TOP COP • The Second Children’s Crusade • Leonidas and the Three Hundred: Leahy versus the Bush White House, May–October 2001 • Leonidas and the Three Hundred: October and November 2001 • PART III. THE TOP COP RISES • Nemeses and Archenemies • For Love of the Batman: The Dark Knight and COICA/PIPA/SOPA Trilogies • The Havana Protocol • Notes • Index

Be the first to know

Get the latest updates on new releases, special offers, and media highlights when you subscribe to our email lists!

Sign up here for updates about the Press