Connecticut rarely has anything to do with choosing a president, even when our native sons are in the running. President Bush is more likely to announce a timetable for leaving Iraq than to admit he was born here.

But the state has taken steps to make itself relevant, moving its primary voting day up to February of next year. We're still overshadowed by the bigger and even earlier states, but at least this time we might be able to cast a ballot before the nominees, for all intents and purposes, are decided. And we again have one of our own in the running, albeit with not much chance of winning. To his credit, though, Sen. Chris Dodd is using his place in the presidential spotlight to make worthy arguments. He says, for example, that the Constitution is worth paying attention to, that defendants ought to be presumed innocent until proven guilty and that the United States shouldn't torture people. Radical stuff.

With the never-ending disaster in Iraq, it's easy to forget that the war might not end up Bush's most damaging legacy. Even with daily reports of mass death in a country we had no business invading in the first place, the real long-term damage might be to our own respect for the rule of law. It's hard to spread democratic values abroad when you show contempt for them at home. For instance, this country is now in the business of holding suspects indefinitely without charging them with a crime. We keep unidentified prisoners in secret prisons around the world, so

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closed-off to oversight that no one has any idea what happens there. And we've decided maybe torture isn't so bad, what with ticking time bombs and all that.

It works on "24," and what's good for Jack Bauer is good for America, right?

Some people, though, realize that if we give up what makes this country great, then there's no point in fighting a "war on terror" — we've already lost. Dodd sounds like he understands this.

He sounds like he understands that this country has survived worse threats than what we're looking at now without sacrificing our way of life. There was World War II, our own Civil War, and that not-long-ago era when enough nuclear weapons to kill everyone on Earth twice over were pointed in our direction. We managed then, and we'll manage now.

The specious arguments that we made exceptions to our rules then — and ought to again — don't hold any water. The internment of Americans of Japanese descent during World War II was one of the darkest episodes in American history, and not one that anyone should be looking to repeat. And the suspension of habeus corpus during the Civil War has no bearing on today's situation; when a conflict is supposed to encompass the entire world for generations to come, there's no sunset clause on any action we take.

Dodd has championed the Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007. It would, among other things, restore habeus corpus protections to detainees, allowing suspects to question the charges against them. This has nothing to do with coddling terrorists or any such nonsense; it's about restoring a staple of Western jurisprudence that goes back about 800 years. This country is supposed to require people to be found guilty of something before we lock them away forever.

The bill would also limit presidential authority to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions. This sounds reasonable, considering that following the Geneva Conventions is required by law. Part of what allows us to claim the moral high ground against people and countries that wish us harm is that we follow the rules we've established.

And the bill would bar information acquired through torture from being introduced as evidence in trials. It's hard to believe this still needs to be said — torture is wrong, and it doesn't work. People will say anything to get it to stop, especially whatever they think the questioners want to hear. They'll confess to secret terrorist bases on the moon if they think it'll make the pain stop. It would also be nice to have people recognize that it's just something we shouldn't do for moral reasons. Apparently, though, we need to pass a law saying that.

Dodd is not going to take the presidential oath of office in January 2009, but he has emerged as a forceful voice for turning back the Bush administration's worst abuses of power. He has also, despite the disheartening fact that he voted in 2002 to approve the Iraq invasion, come out strongly in favor of ending the war now.

When choosing from the 20 or so career politicians looking for the thankless job of picking through the rubble of the past seven years, the country could do a lot worse.

Hugh S. Bailey is assistant editorial page editor at the Connecticut Post. You can reach him at 203-330-6233 or via e-mail at hbailey@ctpost.com.