The Supreme Court's ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld totals 185 pages and can be summarized in two words: Start over. If the Bush Administration wants to try terrorism suspects at Guantánamo Bay in special military tribunals, it can't just declare them legal--it needs to work with the other branches of government to make them so. That in itself was a rebuke to the Administration's claim that it alone can decide how to defend Americans from terrorism. What the court did not say--despite the exultation of civil libertarians and the outrage of advocates of executive power--is that Guantánamo has to be closed....
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