Thursday, June 12, 2008

Lithwick Skewers Scalia

Over at Slate today, Dahlia Lithwick totally obliterates Scalia's hysterical dissent in today's Supreme Court adjudication of Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. US, in which the majority (Kennedy, Souter, Ginsberg, Stevens and Breyer) decided to Let The Terrorists Win by...upholding the Great Writ of Habeus Corpus.

Just a sample:
"...even those who were deemed innocent at Guantanamo are actually guilty in Scalia's mind. And whether or not they ever get to go home, the mere act of providing them with civilian court oversight will surely endanger yet more American lives. For this proposition, Scalia cites the trial of Omar Abdel Rahman in federal court in 1995, in which the names of 200 unindicted conspirators were leaked to Osama Bin Laden. Just to recap, then, everyone at Guantanamo is guilty, and the mere act of trying them will result in more American deaths. This raises the question of what Scalia would do with these prisoners, many of whom have been held for six years without charges. If they can't reasonably be tried or released, it must be a great comfort to believe that they are all killers and terrorists, and no further proof is needed." (Italics added.)
I always love Lithwick, and as Scalia becomes more unhinged, he's an ever-easier and more inviting target. Still, Dahlia is in particularly incisive form today. Read it here.

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