History Shall Not Absolve Him

Today, in Boumediene v. Bush, USSC No. 06-1195, the United States Supreme Court held that enemy combatants held at Guantanamo Bay can employ the constitutional privilege of habeas corpus to challenge their detention there in the federal court system. The privilege of habeas corpus is pretty significant: it was one of the only individual rights enumerated in the Constitution before the states ratified the Bill of Rights. Justice Kennedy's majority opinion is long.

The real fun in this case can be found in the breathless dissents. Justice Scalia's* dissent is the most breathless of all, maybe the most breathless dissent in the history of the Court. He closes with a bang: "The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today." Ominous.

You just have to wonder about what would motivate him to write that sentence. What has the Court done today? Affirmed the importance of an individual right enumerated in the Magna freaking Carta, that's what. Rejected an incredible argument by the worst President in modern American history that the habeas privilege doesn't apply at Gitmo because Gitmo isn't technically America -- even though Gitmo is under America's complete control.

Jeez.

You just have to wonder: is there any act at all that the Republic could take in the name of the war on terror that Justice Scalia would reject? Other than, of course, confiscating our guns?

*Stipulation: Justice Scalia is way, way, way smarter than the humble author of this little blog.