Bench Slapped

Bench Slapped - review of major newspaper coverage of the SCOTUS rebuke of presidential over-reaching (I love that title!)

Here are some excerpts from some nice writeups on the Hamdan decision:

"Secrecy for its own sake, arrogation of power for its own sake, is not a sufficient executive argument." and "The administration isn't really asking for constitutional blank checks. Why should it, when the president thinks he has his own constitutional Swiss bank account?" - Dahlia Lithwick on Slate (she's my fave SCOTUS analyst. The fact that I have a fave -well, that's just sad, I know)

"This administration has taken the astounding position that if the president has "inherent authority" to do and act whenever Congress is silent, then it follows that any act of Congress that regulates such an authority is an invalid impingement on his "inherent power." This conflation of what a president can do if no law prohibits his action and what he can when the law forbids it is a truly insidious legal doctrine." - Walter Dellinger

"What the Court has done, rather is use the democratic process as a lever to discipline and constrain the President's possible overreaching. Given this Administration's history, that's not necessarily a bad thing." - Balkinization


"Moreover, in the eyes of the world, this decision by his hand-picked Supreme Court simply makes Bush look more and more like the little American Dictator he really is." - Hoffmania.com

On a down note, most reports are now saying that Roberts would have backed the gubmnet - but I'm going to double-check that. (googling) Shit - the bastard is not the level-headed guy I thought he was. At least he recused himself - that's somewhat redeeming. Even if he had participated, the shrub still would've gone down in flames.

Oh Loren - Unlce Tom read his dissent to "show his strong disapproval of the decision." whatever.