The waning days of the Bush administration are filled with news, good and bad, and American voters who should be watching the lame ducks with the eyes of a hawk are still absent without leave.
In just one week, these news bites have crawled across the bottom of the cable news screens:
-- The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that suspected terrorist detainees held in the Guantanamo prison camp are entitled to the habeas corpus rights and protection -- access to the federal courts -- that the Bush White House and Congress so assiduously attempted to "white out" of the Constitution. Drumhead military courts just won't cut it, the Supremes wrote, and the government cannot turn the Constitution on and off as it chooses. President Bush said he disagreed with the decision but would abide by it -- gracious of him and a very constitutional position itself.
-- Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain kept his large crew of spinners, explainers, foot removal specialists and apologists on overtime papering over the daily dose of candidate misstatements, mistakes and callous comments. Their biggest job of the week: dealing with McCain's televised suggestion that it really isn't important when American troops in Iraq come home, only that they not come home in body bags or on
hospital gurneys. That may not be important to him, but it surely is very important to the 150,000 or so GIs still in Iraq and the families and friends who love them.
-- The Bush administration's attempt to jam through a U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement by July 31 seemed to be foundering in both Baghdad and Washington. Administration attempts to write in permanent U.S. occupation of scores of military bases in Iraq as well as control over Iraqi airspace and immunity from Iraqi prosecution for not only U.S. troops but also for barely controlled U.S. contractors were running into solid opposition in both capitals. Iraqi parliamentarians were suggesting that Iraqi security forces have demonstrated enough competence that perhaps American forces should just go home.
-- The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Mike Mullen, had some more bad news for American troops heading back to Iraq or Afghanistan for their second, third or fourth tour in combat. While the combat tour is being cut back from 15 months to 12 months later this summer, the Pentagon regrettably will have to continue to use stop-loss orders that keep troops scheduled to leave the ranks on duty for another combat tour. Stop-loss, an involuntary extension on active duty, is also known as the backdoor draft.
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