May 24, 2006 2:45PM # Toughman Contest By [Gene Healy](https://www.cato.org/people/gene-healy) --- SHARE [U.S. News](http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060529/29addington.htm) has an interesting profile of David Addington, Vice-President Cheney’s chief of staff and top legal adviser—a key player in administration debates over torture, domestic detention, and NSA surveillance. One thing that stood out for me was [this description](http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060529/29addington_6.htm) of the social dynamic at work when administration lawyers crafted War on Terror policies: > Whether or not he became the de facto leader of the group, as some administration officials say, Addington’s involvement made for a formidable team. “You put Addington, Yoo, and Gonzales in a room, and there was a race to see who was tougher than the rest and how expansive they could be with respect to presidential power,” says a former Justice Department official. “If you suggested anything less, you were considered a wimp.” For background on the legal theories that emerged from that environment, see [here](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6330). ##### Related Tags [General](https://www.cato.org/general), [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).