Andrew Cochran at the Counterterrorism Blog suggests that the Hamdan decision will be overriden by the Congress with a bill to hold the terrorists in Gitmo.
The news networks are proclaiming that the Supreme Court handed the President a "strong rebuke" in the Hamdan case by declaring the proposed Gitmo trials are illegal under U.S. law and international Geneva conventions.Upon reflection, I tend to agree.
Oh, really?
The decision is actually a huge political gift to President Bush, and the detainees will not be released that easily. The President and GOP leaders will propose a bill to override the decision and keep the terrorists in jail until they are securely transferred to host countries for permanent punishment. The Administration and its allies will release plenty of information on the terrorist acts committed by the detainees for which they were detained (see this great ABC News interview with the Gitmo warden). They will also release information about those terrorist acts committed by Gitmo prisoners after they were released. They will challenge the "judicial interference with national security" and challenge dissenting Congressmen and civil libertarians to either stand with the terrorists or the American people. (links in original)
The Court's decision has given the GOP the ultimate security issue for November. With Democrats constantly pushing the issue of withdrawing from Iraq and treating these prisoners like regular criminals, Cochran is correct, we will be fed with a steady stream of what these men have done, to Americans, to their own countrymen, to innocents. The GOP doesn't have to run against Democrats, they have to run against the Court and really, the Democrats can't win here.
To disavow teh Court's ruling means they have to abandon their mantra that the President has accumulated too much power. But when America reacts to this opinion, the Democrats probably won't have anywhere to run. The GOP must run with this like mad.
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