Ah Hamdi...

Yes its' true--they've got nothing on Hamdi.

This is the guy they went to the supreme court over--the one they kept in solitary for two years. As it turns out, they've got nothing on him and are letting him go rather than give him any of the dure process rights the SCOTUS insisted he had. For those of us who watch and care about this sort of thing, it reveals a level of governmental deception and callousness that it's actually hard to grasp. The decision to release him is both deeply telling and
deeply troubling--suggesting that the administration really was engaged in a power grab. Terrifying to think about what might have happened had the the Hamdi question been presented a few terms earlier when nerves were just a bit more frayed. (See e.g the Patriot act.) What a perfect object lesson in the dangers of excessive executive authority...



The New York Times > Washington > U.S., Bowing to Court, to Free 'Enemy Combatant'