Supremes to Hear Al Marri Case

So, the Supreme Court has finally agreed to hear the Al-Marri Case.  They're years late, but it's better late than never.

Al-Marri is one of the greatest travesties of Bush's misguided war on our civil liberties.  He must ultimately find Justice for the good of the nation, but this leads to a perverse situation.  If Obama moves to give him that Justice expeditiously, he could accidentally enshrine the powers seized by our recent Monarch, George W. Bush.  Without his continued indefinite incarceration, the Supreme Court will rule that the issue is moot, since the injustice has been righted.  They've done the same thing before in the Padilla case, where the Bush Administration transferred him to a civilian prison just before the Supremes were to hear the case.  The conservative court (with 7 of 9 Justices appointed by Republicans) refused to grant review in the Padilla case, thereby preserving Bush's justification for his indefinite detentions, and they will surely do so again if given the chance.

So, as awful as it is, I say let him rot in jail for another few months.  Then the Court will be forced to rule, and we will finally have a Supreme Court precedent saying what none of us ever thought would be necessary - that the President does not have the powers of a King in wartime, and cannot simply imprison Americans on American soil without charge or trial on his say-so alone.  That we need to establish this precedent via the Court rather than just relying on the plain reading of the Constitution is a sad, sad thing for the Republic.