Great news that SCOTUS will take on the critical Hamdan case. The president, in my view, should have lee-way to exercize executive power in wartime as he sees fit, in emergencies when the legislature cannot be expected to act with sufficient speed or secrecy. But broad detention policies in a war that is now defined as permanent should not be in the hands of one man outside of legal, judicial or legislative review. I agree with Churchill on this matter, as he expressed himself in a speech on November 21, 1943:
“The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whther Nazi or Communist.”
Of course, among some of today’s Republicans, Churchill would be considered a whining liberal. Not by me.
The Dish 