Will Has It Right

We have commented on the Supreme Court decision
concerning the Fourth Amendment, Habeas Corpus,
and Guantanamo. A decision that John McCain
said was "one of the worst decisions in the
history of this country." George Will responded
to McCain in his recent Op Ed.

Will asks, "Does it rank with Dred Scott...which
concocted a constitutional right, unmentioned in
the document, to own slaves and held that black
people have no rights that white people are bound
to respect? With Plessy v. Ferguson..which
affirmed the constitutionality of legally enforced
racial segregation?.....

"More likely, some clever ignoramus convinced him
that this decision could make the Supreme Court a
campaign issue." I suppose that this is the idea
that only a Republican can make the country safe
from terrorists.

Referring to McCain, Will continues, "He who wants
to reassure constitutionalist conservatives that he
understands the importance of limited government
should be reminded why the habeas right has long
been known as 'the great writ of liberty.' No state
power is more fearsome than the power to imprison.
Hence the habeas right has been at the heart of
the centuries-long struggle to constrain governments..."
The executive " cannot be the only judge of its own
judgment."

Will concludes his column, "In Marbury v. Madison..
which launched and validated judicial supervision of
America's democratic government, Chief Justice John
Marshall asked: 'To what purpose are powers limited,
and to what purpose is that limitation committed to
writing, if these limits may, at any time, be passed
by those intended to be restrained?' These are
pertinent questions for McCain, who aspires to take
the presidential oath to defend the Constitution."

This is an article that should be read by every student
in high school or college. There is much more in the
entire opinion. It is good to see a major conservative
journalist speak up and write to the traditional rights
found in the Constitution. This is a vindication of the
stand that the creator of this blog has taken on many
occasions that the Republican Party has been hijacked by
reactionaries and fundamentalists who cannot accept a
limited and secularist federal government as established
by the Founding Fathers in the Consititution. These
usurpers try to say now that they are traditional Republicans
and conservatives. The usurpers are the ones campaigning
against Consitutional, separation of powers, federal
government. They want to blur that line between what is a
legally written limited government and an authoritarian
government which would base its operation under some
supernatural power. There are very few traditional conservative
Republican Party members remaining. Spector of PA is one, and
he recently voted against the recent Surveillance Bill.
Hagel of NB would be another. No one else jumps out to me
at the moment. McCain has capitulated to the right wing and has
flip-flopped on most, if not all, of his pre-presidential
positions. BTW, Will entitled his opinion,"Don't flip over
habeas."