Bushwacking the Bill of Rights

Last November, when President Bush issued an executive order establishing a system of military commissions to punish non-citizens, I asked myself, as no doubt countless other Americans did, “But what about Ex Parte Milligan (1866)?”

Surely George W. and his Dad had studied this landmark Supreme Court decision in the course of those searching discussions of American history they must have had during long winter evenings at the ranch. And what of Attorney General John Ashcroft, ipso facto learned in the law, who presumably composed the order and to whom the Milligan decision must have been as mother’s milk? The two highest law enforcers of the land certainly could not have forgotten the case, famous as it is. If they had not, they must either have found it to be unclear or ambiguous, or they must have decided to sweep it aside and take the law into their own hands.