Is it possible that if Bush moved all the prisoners at Guantanamo to a location where the U.S. only has a transient possession of the facility that it would allow Bush to get around habeas?

Not meaning to cut Glenn off at all, but might I recommend Marty Lederman's post on this at Balkinization.

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2008/06/what-does-court-say-about-two-big.html

An old government friend emails with a practical response to the Supreme Court:

Let's free all Gitmo detainees...on a vast, deserted, open and contested Afghan battlefield. C-130 gunship circling overhead for security. Give them all a two minute running head start.

What caught my eye in this email was not just its light tone, but especially the word "Let's." This is plainly meant as a bit of levity, not "serious." Certainly not as serious as the situation calls for. If the friend were serious, he would have said something like, "Any serious analyst of the controversy must conclude that the only option the administration will have in its defense of our homeland is to take no prisoners in the first place---and to rid itself of those it possesses ..." A dull lie, on other words.

But "let's"? This is how children talk. "Let's get ice cream! Let's go down to the pool! Let's put on a show!" The whole idea sounds as though it came from a teenager who's been playing Halo too long. Who are these arrogant people who think they can use "let's" to their friends to mean the United States, and then speak so lightly, publicly, of acts that are so plainly war crimes that even authoritarians can only speak of them to one another in joking terms?

Believe me Glenn, we are in total agreement re the Democrats, and re the fact that opposition is supposed to serve a check on power, whether motivated by principle or by pure self-interest. I am not foolish enough to expect purity, believe me. And perhaps you are right that I am not giving John Major and David Davies enough credit. I guess time will tell.

[snark]

So of course you won't mind if I just hang out a shoot a couple of photos next time you want to have sex with your partner?

Nothing to hide right?

[/snark]

Of course, if it hasn't been mentioned yet, the Brits do shoot more survellance video than anyplace else on the planet, but that doesn't negate Glenn's point which is that the definition of Conservative in the USA has been twisted beyond recognition by the current regime.

Mark my words: as soon as Obama is elected the same Republicans who have been yelling and screaming about the need for a strong, unitary (dictatorial) executive will be the biggest supporters of the need for checks and balances, and in particular the need to give congressional minority parties the right to stop anything they want to any time without any consequences to them.

Recognizing the fraility of men, the founding fathers counted on such factionalism producing good results (check on the power of government) for ignoble reasons (desire for power for themselves). The Republican opposition is in accord with the Constitution.

What the founding fathers had not anticipated is a bunch of supposedly principled but weak-kneed, keel-over, kowtowing, gutless Democrats. It is not just the Republicans that have a authoritarian-worshipping streak. Reid,Rockefeller,Hoyer have it in abundance.

In fact, the comment above suggests that the Republicans don't worship authoritarians at any deep level, their current stand is simply part of their unprincipled quest for power, and will reverse itself when they have a Democratic President

The comment above suggests that the Democrats who have no reason to be a compliant opposition right now, but are, will be even more worshipful of the authority of the President when the President is a Democrat.

It's Fascism as I've said before. It's a word fraught with emotion, I realize, but if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, its.....

We live in a PC speak world. PC speak is really nothing but the use of euphemisms to hide the true meaning of what is being said. Thus torture with all of its ugliness becomes merely "harsh interrogation techniques". Calling the Republicans authoritarian instead of fascist is yet another example of PC speak. Authoritarian sounds like a stern father. According to Wikipedia, this is what fascist means:

Fascism is a term used to describe authoritarian nationalist political ideologies or mass movements that are concerned with notions of cultural decline or decadence and seek to achieve a millenarian national rebirth by placing the nation or race above the individual and promoting cults of unity, energy and purity.

According to Shrub, we have an epic clash of cultures going on and we can't allow the Islamofascist culture to be ascendant. Shrub & Co have been placing the nation above the individual in this "clash" and promoting cults of unity, energy, and purity. Thus Darth Cheney could label Scott McClellan's recent book as traitorous.

It's way past time to call a duck a duck.

That, to me, points to the most mystifying aspect of the Republicans' obsession with expanding executive powers: Do they *really* want President Obama to be able to create signing statements explaining that a Republican Congress may well have passed a bill protecting 2nd Amendment rights or repealing Roe vs. Wade, but he doesn't plan to pay any attention to it?

It really seems like they haven't thought through the realities of what it would be like to be in the opposition under the conditions they've created. In my darkest moments I think it must be a clue that they aren't planning to hold any elections or that they are going to rig them. Then they wouldn't be in the opposition EVER.

I know that's ridiculous, but seriously. If the expansion of executive powers and the Iraq War are any indication, the neoliberals should rename themselves "The people who don't understand the concept of unintended consequences".

"The contrast between the British Right and the American Right could not be more glaring. The former is at least mildly faithful to the principles they espouse, while the latter has morphed completely into an authoritarian, government-power-worshiping faction that fantasizes it's waging glorious war against -- to use Antonin Scalia's politicized term -- "radical Islamists," but which is only at war with its own claimed principles and the principles on which the country was founded."

glenn - i don't think the difference between the american and british right has anything to do with ideology. isn't it more about who is in power and who is out?

recall that in the '90s, it was the democrats pushing legislation to diminish our rights and the republicans defending our rights:

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/8/7/121334/7700

it is not unusual for those in power to want to consolidate and centralize that power. what i think is unusual is how weak the democrats have been in mounting any kind of opposition while they have been our of power.