The Year of Our Constitution

The '06 Stakes Just Got Raised
By Robert Parry
Consortium News

The narrow margin of the U.S. Supreme Court’s rebuke to George W. Bush on military tribunals highlights the stakes on the table for the November 2006 congressional elections – nothing short of the survival of a meaningful constitutional system in the United States.

[...]

It is a strong possibility that if the Republicans retain control of the U.S. Congress in the November 2006 elections, Bush will get to fill at least one more Supreme Court vacancy with the likes of Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts. Then, the court’s majority will flip in the opposite direction, granting Bush the authoritarian powers he so covets.

Even now, the court balance is being maintained by the swing vote of Republican Anthony Kennedy, the author of the infamous Bush v. Gore decision in December 2000 that prevented a full counting of votes in Florida and handed Bush the presidency. [...]

Recommended Reading: Secrecy & Privilege by Robert Parry

Related:

• Gitmo Ruling Blow to Expanding Presidential Power - New York Times

  President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney spent much of their first term bypassing Congress in the service of what they labeled a "different kind of war." Now they will almost certainly plunge into negotiations they previously spurned over the extent of the president's powers, this time in the midst of a midterm election in which Bush's wartime strategies and their consequences have emerged as a potent issue.

• A Moment of Pause by William Rivers Pitt

  A rolling sense of awe has enveloped the mainstream news media since yesterday's Supreme Court decision on Guantanamo. The specifics of the decision are part of the discussion, to be sure, but the sense of amazement has a more basic root. After all this time, after a seemingly endless series of over-reaching power grabs by the Bush administration, someone with a big enough stick finally got in the way and said, "No."

• Rosa Brooks: Did Bush commit war crimes? - Los Angeles Times

  Rosa Brooks points out, "The Supreme Court on Thursday dealt the Bush administration a stinging rebuke, declaring in Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld that military commissions for trying terrorist suspects violate both US military law and the Geneva Convention. But the real blockbuster in the Hamdan decision is the court's holding that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention applies to the conflict with al-Qaeda - a holding that makes high-ranking Bush administration officials potentially subject to prosecution under the federal War Crimes Act."

• A President Rebuked by Bruce Shapiro - The Nation

  "The only surviving World War II veteran on the Supreme Court, Justice John Paul Stevens, appointed three decades ago by a president as Republican as W., delivered the plain and airtight message: President Bush violated every standard of the military code, the US Constitution and international law with its order for military tribunals at Guantanamo," writes Bruce Shapiro.

• A Loss for Competitive Elections - New York Times

  "Instead of standing up for a fair electoral landscape, the Supreme Court produced a ruling that did little to ensure the vibrancy of American democracy, and that itself had an unfortunate whiff of partisanship," writes the New York Times Editorial Board.

• Roberts Is at Court's Helm, but He Isn't Yet in Control - New York Times

  As the dust settled on a consequential Supreme Court term, the first in 11 years with a change in membership and the first in two decades with a new chief justice, one question that lingered was whether it was now the Roberts court, in fact as well as in name.
  
  The answer: not yet.

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