Not a good precedent

In a major defeat for the Bush 43 Administration, the United States Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision struck down the law that allowed the government to try the Guantanamo Bay detainees in front of military tribunals: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080612/ts_nm/guantanamo_court_dc_6. I'll ignore the gleeful, one-sided reporting in the article, and concentrate on the facts. What this will do is allow the detainees to petition federal courts for trials there, and one of them, Osama Bin Laden's former driver, has already filed just such an application. Of course, once they are in the federal court system, you can be sure that there will be one ruling after another in their favour by Clinton-era appointed judges.

What the Supreme Court just did is wrong, plain and simple. Think that the Supreme Court can't be wrong? Try the Dred Scott case.

I shudder to think what would have happened had these justices been around when Lincoln was fighting the Civil War..................

UPDATE (5:44 p.m.): The entire opinion can be found here: http://supremecourtus.gov/opinions/07pdf/06-1195.pdf. Justice Scalia's dissent is as withering as it is brilliant.