Enemy Combatant
Thursday, January 27, 2005
More Tricky Gnosis From Unsavory Bork
In a new Washington Post article entitled "A War The Courts Shouldn't Manage," former Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork proves why the Senate did a wonderful, courageous thing in rejecting him in 1988. The Bearded One criticizes the U.S. Supreme Court and lower federal courts for “judicial overreaching” in their decisions on cases concerning “America’s war against radical Islamic terrorists.” Hamdi v. Rumsfeld “left unclear” how the opportunity for a detainee to contest his status as an enemy combatant “could be exercised, and it is difficult to see how it could be without calling witnesses from the combat zone, a procedure that would divert American soldiers from waging war.” Rasul v. Bush was a “disaster” for the war effort because “captured alien combatants held by the U.S. military anywhere in the world can henceforth litigate their status in federal court.” Two district court decisions, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and Omar Abu Ali v. Ashcroft, also “encroached upon the president’s war powers.” Bork argues that “the executive branch’s extensive prerogatives in foreign affairs are grounded in its unique expertise, information and unitary nature,” and that improvements to detainee policies should be the province of the executive branch, not the judiciary.
Because the Senate rejected Bork, Reagan eventually nominated (and the Senate approved) Anthony Kennedy -- not the greatest Justice, mind you, but a damn site better than the regurgitated kneejerk FoxNews hysteria that passes for legal analysis by The Federalist Mitch Miller.
