Furthering the Bush Court Legacy

    The latest Supreme Court vote on Guantanamo Bay detainees should give John McCain supporters second thoughts, especially after reviewing McCain’s position on court appointees, as well as his support of suspending individual rights.
    The writ of habeas corpus -- an ancient premise that targeted kings who imprisoned enemies indefinitely -- is so fundamental to the Constitution that it was written into the document before there was a Bill of Rights.
    It must not, Kennedy wrote in a majority decision “be subject to manipulation by those whose power it is designed to restrain.”
    After an initially mild reaction to the court ruling, a day later McCain hyped it up for pandering. Given to hyperbole before his conservative audience, he said: "The Supreme Court yesterday rendered a decision which I think is one of the worst decisions in the history of this country."
    The vote was Justice 5, and Brutality 4. Obviously, McCain sides with brutality, considering his views, his statement, and his favorites on the court.
    It was McCain’s bill in the final hours before adjourning in 2006 (before Democrats officially became a majority), that cast aside the Constitution and the principle of habeas corpus. The Military Commissions Act denied detainees the right to challenge their imprisonment in a non-military court.
    Much of the act was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court’s vote.
    If John McCain is elected president, he could with one Supreme Court appointment change the Supreme Court voting quotient to Brutality 5, and Justice 4.
    Americans, not smitten with the savagery of being thrown in prison without representation and without charges, perhaps, can’t relate to being labeled “unlawful enemy combatants,” and thrown into never-ending detention.
    A few American citizens have had that experience.
    So if you feel relatively safe from the savagery and the brutality of being swept out of existence in the name of national security, listen to these stories.
    Two American citizens have been held without trial for more than 20 months, imprisoned in solitary confinement in Navy brigs, interrogated night and day and denied the right to consult lawyers until their imprisonment was traced by relatives.
    One of the American detainees, Yaser Esam Hamdi, was seized in Afghanistan during the war. He was in Guantanamo until it was learned that he was born in Louisiana and is hence an American citizen, at which point he was moved to the United States. President Bush declared Hamdi an “enemy combatant” and ordered him held indefinitely.
    A public defender was hired by Hamdi’s father, who sought Hamdi’s release on a writ of habeas corpus. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, held that the president had the power he claimed when a citizen was found on or near a foreign battlefield.
    Jose Padilla was born in Brooklyn, was a gang member, and served several jail terms. In prison he converted to Islam. In May 2002, federal agents arrested him at O’Hare Airport in Chicago and took him to New York as a material witness before a grand jury looking into the 9/11 attack. After the Justice Department declared him to be an “enemy combatant,” his court-appointed lawyer could not see him.
    The evidence that he was an enemy combatant was a statement by a Pentagon official who was not subject to cross-examination. This was enough for a federal trial judge. The Bush administration still retained him in prison even after the New York federal Court of Appeals rejected the justification for his enemy combatant status.
    Lest you think this cannot happen to you, consider that in both cases the administration claimed the right to decide on its own not only the law, but the facts.
    If the Bush administration or any succeeding tyrannical administration wants to incarcerate you, they still have that power and if another Supreme Court Justice is appointed by John McCain or any other fancier of “strict constructionist” judicial appointments, you could be toast.
    A recent statement of McCain clarifies his appointment philosophy. He has promised to insist on persons who were faithful to the Constitution and that had such a record. Then he went on to say, “that is why I strongly supported John Roberts and Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court and that is why I would seek men and women like them as my judicial appointees.”
    Roberts’ dissenting statement smacks of control and politics: “The decision is not really about the detainees at all, but about control of federal policy regarding enemy combatants.” The public will “lose a bit more control over the conduct of this nation’s foreign policy to unelected, politically unaccountable judges,” he added.
    What happened to the Supreme Court’s focus on the Constitution and insuring individual rights?
    Did anyone notice that Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissenting opinion is quit strident on the side of fear, order, and politics, predicting “devastating” and “disastrous consequences” from the decision. “It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed,” he said.
    Does this sound like a concern for preserving the Constitution and God-given rights?
    Scalia and Thomas were Bush’s prototypes for Roberts and Alito. Roberts and Alito are the McCain mold for his own appointments.
    If Bush leaves any kind of legacy, it most certainly will be one of politics, fear, and tyranny. Even after Bush is mercifully gone, his court appointments will continue on.
    McCain, if elected, can solidify a real legacy for Bush, giving a court majority that supports what Bush has always stood for: a tyranny of purpose and a priority of politics.