Gitmo Bay the RIght Decison, but not the Decison of the Right...

Between the disdain reserved for ''activist'' judges, and trial lawyers, it would appear to someone standing outside of the political fray that a push is on from our nation's Conservative Right to do away with America's judicial branch of government.

Even the long-held Constitutionality of Judicial Review, the process by which the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) can strike down state and Federal laws that violate the Constitution, is under scutiny from the Right.

Although the authority for the Supreme Court to strike down laws is not specifically listed in our Constitution, it is an implied power dating back to 1803, and derived from the Constitution's Article III, and VI, which declare that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, that no state or federal law is allowed to violate the Constitution, and that the ultimate court for deciding the constitutionality of federal or state laws is the Supreme Court of the United States.

The Right's desire to restrict the Supreme Court to a rubber-stamp for America's legislative body, however, and to the whims of the Chief Executive, was certainly in evidence on the AM radio talk show circuit following the recent SCOTUS ruling that declared that the President's planned military tribunals for Guantanamo Bay detainees had to (GASP!) follow U.S. law, to include include international treaties drafted by Congress, and signed into law by the President, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

The President's argument for treating Gitmo Bay detainees outside of the scope of U.S. law was that the Supreme Court simply did not have jurisdiction over the legality of his actions there. For the SCOTUS to have ruled in any other manner inconsistent with that which they did would have implicitly created an executive authority that exists outside of the jurisdiction of the Constitution.

We used to call this form of executive leadership a King.

It is high time for those citizens who consider themselves ''conservatives'' to re-define just what it is they wish to conserve.

Please visit my anti-war website, www.shockedandawful.com