Wake up call

Though he continued on for more than 70 pages in his stinging majority opinion on the Guantanamo Bay matter, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy pretty much said it all when he wrote decisively that “the laws and Constitution are designed to survive and remain in force in extraordinary times.”

The court’s 5-4 ruling to restore the writ of habeas corpus for the 300 or so “enemy combatants” being held at Gitmo was just the latest in a series of decisions that have repudiated the Bush administration’s war on the Constitution.

Yes, it happened by the slimmest of margins, but our system of checks and balances, in its infinite beauty, worked once again as it was designed.

Still, the closer-than-close 5-4 margin should be cause for alarm, particularly in light of the forcefulness of the two dissenting opinions, each of which was signed by all four dissenters (Antonin Scalia, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito --- all, not surprisingly, appointed to the bench by Republicans).

Particularly disturbing was this, from the reliably crazy Scalia, doing his best Rush Limbaugh impersonation:

"America is at war with radical Islamists. … The nation will live to regret what the court has done today. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed."

To read that, you’d think the decision was to throw open the gates of Gitmo and set everyone there free. All we’re talking about here is giving people the chance to be heard in court. With some of the best legal minds known to man working as AUSAs and with, in most cases, more than a half-decade to establish evidence against them, anyone who’s being legitimately held will undoubtedly be kept there until the day they die.

John McCain, predictably, warned Thursday that “we should pay attention” to the dissent calling the ruling:

"One of the worst decisions in the history of this country."

With John Paul Steven now 88 and Ruth Bader Ginsburg turning 76 in August, let that be a reminder of what’s at stake to every “disenfranchised” Hillary voter who’s considering throwing a tantrum and voting for McCain this fall.