The five liberal idiots on the Supreme Court just gave Gitmo detainees the right to challenge their being held as enemy combatants in US courts. This is why elections matter. This is why busting our hump to win back control of the Senate while maintaining control of the White House is imperative for Republicans.

People have groused about McCain being too much of a maverick. They’ve also said that Norm Coleman has gone green too often for their likings. To some, that’s the only reason they need for not busting their hump in getting these men elected. While I agree that both gentlemen have given us pause with some of their policy positions, it’s instances like this that sharpen our focus on what the most important things in life are.

The justices handed the Bush administration its third setback at the high court since 2004 over its treatment of prisoners who are being held indefinitely and without charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. The vote was 5-4, with the court’s liberal justices in the majority.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said, “The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.”

It was not immediately clear whether this ruling, unlike the first two, would lead to prompt hearings for the detainees, some of whom have been held more than 6 years. Roughly 270 men remain at the island prison, classified as enemy combatants and held on suspicion of terrorism or links to al Qaeda and the Taliban.

This isn’t a ruling based on the Constitution. It’s essentially a policy decree from the third legislative branch of government.

Captain Ed nails it with this observation:

The Supreme Court has basically ruled that the Constitution applies worldwide rather than just to the US and its residents, which makes it pretty difficult to go back to the well a third time. Also, with very little time remaining in the Bush administration, they will not have enough time to push through a third attempt to address the Court’s concerns, and this ruling appears to be much broader than the two that preceded this one.

It seems absurd to apply criminal law to unlawful combatants captured during hostilities abroad. Will they require a Miranda reading, too? Do we have to bring the soldiers and Marines who captured them to the trial? In our 232-year history, when have we ever allowed that kind of access to enemy combatants not captured inside the US itself?

These bunch of black-robed liberal idiots should be run out of DC for their incompetence. At minimum, they should have to run as legislators because that’s what Kennedy, Stevens, Souter, Ginsberg and Breyer are.

This cabal started by saying that the tribunals were illegal because they were created solely within the Executive Branch. After that ruling, the White House made its case to Congress, which pased legislation that created the laws for military tribunals. Now the five liberal idiots moved the goalposts again, this time saying that that wasn’t good enough either.

I strongly suggest that Republicans and sane-thinking Democrats, if any such creatures exist, put together a constitutional amendment that would essentially render this ruling moot. A constitutional amendment stating that enemy combatants captured on foreign battlefields don’t have Habeus Corpus rights is the sledgehammer needed to void this ruling.

Those people who stall the constitutional amendment or vote against it should be labeled as not giving a damn about national security. PERIOD.

This is a disastrous overreach on the court’s behalf. They should be ashamed of themselves.

The bigger point is that we need to get more justices like Roberts, Scalia, Thomas and Alito. That won’t happen if we don’t maintain control of the White House and retake the Senate.

Anyone who thinks that that isn’t worth fighting for needs to re-examine their priorities as well as their responsibilities to the rest of society. We can’t afford to have liberals in the Senate and in the Supreme Court putting us at risk.

Technorati: Enemy Combatants, Habeus Corpus, Anthony Kennedy, John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer, SCOTUS, John McCain, Norm Coleman, Constitution, Election 2008

Cross-posted at California Conservative