Once again, I must bow to the superior and godlike abilities of the master wordsmith who is Chris:

And the Stevens decision would indeed be a landmark ruling, a return to sanity – if we were still in an era where the institutions of American government and society were actually functional, and office-holders felt bound by law. But if there is no political will in the American establishment to enforce the ruling – to make it mean what it manifestly says – then it will be nothing more than a pretty ornament for the Republic’s coffin.

And where does that will exist? Not in Congress, not in the media, not in the streets – and certainly not in the confused, craven Democratic opposition. Yet the true nature of the Regime’s wide-ranging war on liberty has been glaringly obvious for years. I’ve been writing about Bush’s power grab in the Moscow Times and elsewhere since November 2001, when I noted that he had given himself the right to order the killing or incarceration of anyone on earth whom he arbitrarily deemed a terrorist – or even a terrorist suspect. This was reported openly at the time, with approval from the gung-ho corporate media and the American political establishment, with record-breaking poll numbers for Bush – and nary a peep from the Democrats. The first press reports of tortured captives quickly followed, again without controversy.

Indeed, for all its reputed obsession with secrecy, the Bush Regime has been remarkably open about its usurpations. “Extrajudicial killing,” torture, indefinite detention, mass surveillance, defiance of court rulings and Congress, employment of death squads, an unprovoked war of aggression – all have been carried out openly, readily apparent to anyone with access to mainstream media sources. That the Supreme Court has only now challenged the essence of Bush’s claim to authoritarian power is poignant testimony to how deep the rot of tyranny has spread.

Bush’s reaction to the ruling is more evidence of the decay. After a vague, haughty promise to “look at the findings” – rather than simply obey them, as the law requires – Bush declared: “One thing I’m not going to do, though, is I’m not going to jeopardize the safety of the American people. People have got to understand that.” Thus in his mind the circular core of his authoritarian philosophy – the voracious worm that is devouring the Republic, the very thing that the Court ruled against – remains intact: any action that he arbitrarily declares necessary to ensure “the safety of the American people” cannot be restrained by laws or courts.

Already, the lickspittle, lock-step Congress is preparing laws to retroactively “legalize” past Bush crimes and countenance future offenses. As legal scholar Mark Garber notes, this will likely satisfy at least one of the Court’s wavering moderates when the next test of Bush’s tyranny comes around, sinking the razor-thin majority for liberty – which will soon disappear in any case when the ancient Stevens shuffles off this mortal coil. His bold stroke for freedom was magic indeed, but it may prove, in the corrupted currents of this world, to be such stuff as dreams are made on.

He speaks for me. The only thing I can add is that let’s all not forget that Roberts sat this one out, and the next time, he won’t have to.