Asked about his model Supreme Court justices during one of the four dozen Republican debates held under a model of Ronald Reagan's plane suspended from the ceiling in Simi Valley's RonnieLand Park, Senator John McCain easily barked the names Roberts and Alito as ideals of the robed upper classes. Well, today McCain's models of right-wing judicial intervention bit the dust - along with the clownish knee-jerk automatics Scalia and Thomas - as the U.S. Supreme Court returned habeas corpus to precedence. In the matter of defendants held without charge or representation in Guantanamo Bay, the Court declared Section 7 of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 unconstitutional.
Mark ye well those Democrats among us who would reach angrily for the McCain lever because of some all-too-real slights and trickery in the primary past by the DNC and others. Remember that John Paul Stevens is 88 and let spite not guide your voting hand. Hear Glenn Greenwald:
In upholding the right of habeas corpus for Guantanamo detainees, the Court found that the "Combatant Status Review Tribunals" process ("CSRT") offered to Guantanamo detainees -- mandated by the John-McCain-sponsored Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 -- does not constitute a constitutionally adequate substitute for habeas corpus. To the contrary, the Court found that such procedures -- which have long been criticized as sham hearings due to the fact that defendants cannot have a lawyer present, government evidence is presumptively valid, and defendants are prevented from challenging (and sometimes even knowing about) much of the evidence against them -- "fall well short of the procedures and adversarial mechanisms that would eliminate the need for habeas corpus review."
The stain of Gitmo has tainted our national colors long enough. Remember what's at stake in this election. Senator Clinton certainly does.
