Will Liberty Live?
As usual, Dan Gilmor has the skinny on what's really going on in the Oval Office. And it's damn scary.
The administration's claim here -- that the president and his aides alone can decide to lock an American citizen away forever is a claim to their right, and that of future presidents', to be tyrants.NY Times: Court Hears Case on U.S. Detainees. The Bush administration yielded no ground before the Supreme Court on Wednesday in arguing that the open-ended military detention of United States citizens as enemy combatants, without criminal charges or access to lawyers, was justified both in law and as policy.
It's incredible that this is even thinkable. But our collective fear from the Sept. 11 attacks, and Congress' absolute spinelessness in defending the Constitution it swore to uphold, has given Bush what he so plainly wants: the opportunity to be the president who asserts, and gets, absolute power.
Absolute power is always abused. Always. This kind of absolute power -- making leaders the prosecutor, judge and jury -- is the lynchpin of tyranny.
If the court upholds this abuse of liberty, it will be assisting in a crime: If this assault on the Constitution succeeds -- if the Constitution has truly become meaningless on something so fundamental -- then we will have destroyed America to save it.
The stakes are that high.
NOTE: Slate's coverage of the court arguments yesterday has a smart additional feature. There are inserts linking to the audio of specific exchanges.