Ballad of Guantanamo Bay

Trouble is, the Supreme Court decision comes far too late for the United States to salvage its reputation as a nation of laws and due process.

And, anyway, even when faced with a ruling as seemingly decisive as yesterday's, it remains to be seen if this administration feels compelled to adhere to the decision.

"If they rule against the government, I don't see how that is going to affect us," the commander, Rear Adm. Harry B. Harris, said Tuesday evening as he sat in a conference room in his headquarters. "From my perspective, I think the direct impact will be negligible."

The Defense Department repeated that view on Thursday, asserting that the court's sweeping ruling against the tribunals did not undermine the government's argument that it can hold foreign suspects indefinitely and without charge, as "enemy combatants" in its declared war on terror.

Privately, though, some administration officials involved in detention policy — along with many critics of that policy — were skeptical that Guantánamo could or would go about its business as before. "It appears to be about as broad a holding as you could imagine," said one administration lawyer, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the ruling. "It's very broad, it's very significant, and it's a slam."

Nevertheless, though, the majority opinion of John Paul Stevens -- the only war veteran on the Court, who knows something about "enemy combatants" and military tribunals, sure was refreshing.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. did not take part in the case. Last July, four days before Mr. Bush nominated him to the Supreme Court, he was one of the members of a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court here that ruled for the administration in the case.

In the courtroom on Thursday, the chief justice sat silently in his center chair as Justice Stevens, sitting to his immediate right as the senior associate justice, read from the majority opinion. It made for a striking tableau on the final day of the first term of the Roberts court: the young chief justice, observing his work of just a year earlier taken apart point by point by the tenacious 86-year-old Justice Stevens, winner of a Bronze Star for his service as a Navy officer in World War II.

Conversely, I wonder if this won't open the door for the administration to find a way to close Guantanamo under cover of this ruling. That would seem to be a good thing, but Guantanamo is the closest thing we've had to transperency in the four years since the fall of the Taliban (and by "fall," I mean run away to fight again another day). Out of sight, the prisoners will continue to languish, as now their cases will start all over at square one.