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Lord, save us from the idiot pundit class. The smackdown the Supreme Court gave the Bush administration is making the GOP very unhappy. I mean, how dare we consider a fundamental building block of justice since the Magna Carta anything less than an unacceptable allowance for activist judges?

And how do we know it's a bad decision? Fear, fear, fear!!!! Newt says it'll cost us a city! A notion not far off from Scalia's remarkably legal citation-free dissent that this decision "will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed." Oooohhh....be afraid, America. Little obnoxiously liberal notions like the right for people like Maher Arar to know why he was detained and to prove his innocence are things that the Republicans don't think they should have to held to.

Mr. GINGRICH: On the other hand, I will say, the recent Supreme Court decision to turn over to a local district judge decisions of national security and life and death that should be made by the president and the Congress is the most extraordinarily arrogant and destructive decision the Supreme Court has made in its history.

REID: In its history.

Mr. GINGRICH: In its history. Worse than Dred Scott, worse than--because--for this following reason: The court has now knowingly stepped in--and this morning's newspapers say smugglers had actually gotten the design of a nuclear weapon, that we now have the evidence that people out there had a nuclear weapon design. And this court is saying that any random district judge, based on whatever their personal caprice is, whatever their personal ideological bias, can intervene with a terrorist in such a way--and this is something that the Italians will tell you about fighting the mafia.

Worse than Dred Scott? Wasn't that a dog whistle used by GWB for indicating the kind of justices he'd pick for SCOTUS? And the whole "mushroom cloud" fear of smugglers getting nuclear plans? Dude, it's called the Google. It's not hard to get bomb plans online or in the library, for that matter--manufacturing them is another issue. But that has NOTHING to do with the Boumediene case. Boumediene said that habeas corpus still applied at Guantanamo, despite its location in Cuba because the US has sovereign rights over it and the Military Commissions Act of 2006 was an unconstitutional suspension of habeas corpus.

But again, facts have a liberal bias, don't they, Newt?

Transcripts below the fold:

REID: War or economy, what's going to be the bigger issue in the fall? Or is there something else?

Mr. GINGRICH: Well, I think--I think they're interlocked. I think the reason the American people worry so much about energy is partly the economy, partly the personal impact of 4 and $5 gasoline. And partly, as we found in a poll at American Solutions a year ago, 78 percent of the country said it was dangerous to rely on foreign dictatorships for oil. And I think they see that both as a national security issue, as a--as an economic issue. On the other hand, I will say, the recent Supreme Court decision to turn over to a local district judge decisions of national security and life and death that should be made by the president and the Congress is the most extraordinarily arrogant and destructive decision the Supreme Court has made in its history.

REID: In its history.

Mr. GINGRICH: In its history. Worse than Dred Scott, worse than--because--for this following reason: The court has now knowingly stepped in--and this morning's newspapers say smugglers had actually gotten the design of a nuclear weapon, that we now have the evidence that people out there had a nuclear weapon design. And this court is saying that any random district judge, based on whatever their personal caprice is, whatever their personal ideological bias, can intervene with a terrorist in such a way--and this is something that the Italians will tell you about fighting the mafia.

REID: Well, but here's my question.

Mr. GINGRICH: Go ahead.

REID: Why won't the inexperience argument work against Obama, then? If you're talking about all these dangers out there in foreign policy, with nuclear weapons and--why can't the McCain successfully argue that Barama--Obama is just not ready for that job?

Mr. GINGRICH: My judgment, as somebody who's studied politics for a long time, is because it won't work in the end. Obama's a very articulate, very intelligent Harvard Law graduate, you hnow, who is extraordinarily smart, and he is not going to come across in a debate like some guy who's dopey. I mean, he's going to come across as fully prepared. He knows how to study all this stuff. He has good military advisers. The problem with Obama is he's wrong. It's not that he's
inexperienced, it's that his policies are wrong. He applauded this court decision. This court decision is a disaster which could cost us a city. And the debate ought to be over whether or not you're prepared to risk losing an American city on behalf of five lawyers--it was a five-to-four decision, and five lawyers have decided that the Supreme Court counts more than the Congress and the president combined in national security. That has never been true in American history.
That ought to be a principled argument between McCain and Obama, about whether or not you're prepared to allow any random nutcase district judge who has no knowledge of national security to set the rules for terrorists.