What The Supreme Court's Saying, Maybe

I certainly haven't caught all the strands of commentary on the Court"s Hamdan decision, but what I've heard and read seems to me to ignore the real point of the opinion: that the Court took the case for consideration at all. As I dimly recall my Con Law studies, Supreme Courts are nototiously hesitant to review Presidential powers during wartime. Think of the Court refusing to prevent the incarceration of perfectly innocent Japanese-Americans during World War Two. Think of the Court refusing to slap down Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War.

To even reach the point where this decision could be considered, the Court majority had to reach the conclusion that the War on Terror isn't really a war. Politicians--especially of the HWC stripe--cannot make this case in public, and apparently Supreme Court Justices can't, either. But it's impossible to conceive of this, or any, Supreme Court slapping down the President in World War Two, or One, or the Civil War. Korea? The Court did challenge Truman's attempt to seize the steel industry, but Korea was a United Nations police action, or so it said on the official papers.

The Court majority may be sending the sub-textual message that the war metaphor is too much hat and not enough cattle.