If you find yourself enjoying a well deserved, false sense of well being this evening, I’d like to yank you out of it for just a moment. I do this because I’m a bastard. I do this because I care. When the Supreme Court refused to review the Padilla case, it confirmed the president’s power to detain an American citizen, arrested on American soil, for three years without any rights. Just slap an “unlawful combatant” label on any American, regardless of where they were arrested or what they were up to, and that American no longer has the rights guaranteed them by the constitution. Shining city on a hill, indeed. Upyernoz has a very nice summary, if you care to read it.
…And just to be clear, anybody who wants to, can cry me a river about how Padilla is a real evil dude. Let the tears flow darling, because I’m here for you. Look, I may have been asleep in civics class the day it was covered, but I can’t recall ever hearing about a “real evil dude” exemption anywhere in the constitution. I’m wrong about a lot of stuff, but I’m pretty sure that exemption isn’t in there.
