June 29, 2006
AT LEAST THE LEFT GETS TO PRETEND THEY WON THIS ONE
Cutting Through the Hyperbole on Hamdan (Dennis Byrne, 29 June 2006, RCP)
If you read the decision together with the appeals court opinion, the conclusion is inescapable: The Bush administration followed the rule of law, as it saw it laid out in statute and case law. A divided Supreme Court (5-4, if you include Roberts' earlier decision on the appellate court), saw the law differently. To say that the Bush administration was flouting the law is a slander that only the ignorant or the dishonest would commit.
Despite all the brouhaha, this was a win for everyone. The Left gets to wag their fingers at Bush and he doesn't have to give the guy up or try him. And, if Bush does decide to try him, the noises coming out of Congress today indicate they're just falling all over themselves to provide authorization and drop the hammer on the residents of Gitmo. Finally, that bit about the Geneva Conventions applying to the entire war is just Dicta and as OJ likes to point out: the Court doesn't actually have the power to infringe on the Unitary Executive anyway.
MORE:
Supreme Court Ruling May Not Slow White House (Doyle McManus, Peter Wallsten and Richard B. Schmitt, June 29, 2006, LA Times)
Since the 2001 terrorist attacks, President Bush has asserted almost unlimited authority to define the rules of what he calls "a different kind of war." And, faced with the Supreme Court's rejection of administration policies on "enemy combatants" Thursday, the White House signaled that it had no intention of backing down.Posted by Pepys at June 29, 2006 8:06 PMMeeting the Supreme Court's objections required little more than having Congress put its stamp of approval on a system of military tribunals, the White House suggested. And some congressional Republicans quickly agreed.
"The Supreme Court did not require these people to be let go. They simply said if you want to try them, Mr. President, you need to get Congress involved. I agree," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a former military lawyer, told CNN.
"Once we do that," Graham said, I think this problem will be behind us."
If anything, this will be remembered as the first act that puts the Geneva Conventions up on the shelf next to the Kellogg-Briand pact, the Washington Naval Conference and the League of Nations.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at June 29, 2006 10:32 PMInternational treaties ought to bind our enemies, not us--we've let them do the opposite.
Posted by: oj at June 29, 2006 10:45 PMOn the big media front, and in the wake of the Times' revelations last week, I think the press' victory dance about Thursday's court ruling is in the long run another plus for GWB, because the administration's spin on that story to the public was the Times was assisting America's enemies by revealing the existance of the system to track financial transactions.
Even if their "win" over Bush turns out to be less than first trumpeted, high-fiving each other about the Gitmo prisoners getting more legal rights isn't going to do anything but reinforce that feeling about the big media folks (and the Democrats they support) among voters that they care more about the terrorists than the do about the folks in their own country.
Posted by: John at June 30, 2006 1:31 AMThe politics may be good for W, but the decision is still bad for the nation.
Posted by: David Cohen at June 30, 2006 7:15 AMKennedy did offer Congress an out in the matter by writing new laws to clarify the situation, and if those go back to the high court Roberts will be able to hear the case. So it's not a good ruling, but with an election coming up, you'd think the Congressional GOP would be smart enough to make rewriting the rules a major issue in the run-up to November -- either they pass and we avoid the possibility of criminal court trials for the Gitmo guys, or the Democrats block any new regulations, and then have to explain their reasoning to voters.
Posted by: John at June 30, 2006 9:14 AMInternational treaties ought to bind our enemies, not us
or, "I shouldn't have to follow any laws I don't like!" You aren't a member of Bush's legal team, are you? Because with sophistamicated arguments like that, you sure sound like it.
I concur with the post that the practical impact of the case will be minimal for the moment. What is really significant is that the holdings reject all of the arguments on which the admin based its warrantless wiretapping.
Posted by: jpe at June 30, 2006 11:06 AMNo. The significant thing is that the Court held that Bush was entirely reasonable in his acts and had not violated the Constitution in any way. The ruling was nothing more than a "you may be right, but we disagree" moment.
Posted by: Pepys at June 30, 2006 12:22 PM