Habeas Corpus

Although I probably recall reading about the vote in question two years ago when it happened, Greenwald's summary of this (pasted below) gave me my first LOL of the day.

The paragraph below comes from Glenn Greenwald's blog entry about the Supreme Court's recent decision upholding Habeas Corpus :

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 was -- and remains -- one of the great stains on our national political character. It was passed by a substantial majority in the Senate (65-34) with the support of every single Senate Republican (except Chafee) and 12 Senate Democrats. No filibuster was even attempted. It passed by a similar margin in the House, where 34 Democrats joined 219 Republicans to enact it. One of the most extraordinary quotes of the post-9/11 era came from GOP Sen. Arlen Specter, who said at the time that that the Military Commissions Act -- because it explicitly barred federal courts from hearing habeas corpus petitions brought by Guantanamo detainees -- "sets back basic rights by some 900 years" and was "patently unconstitutional on its face" -- and Specter then proceeded to vote for it.


Is Specter the devil? "It's bad. It's evil. It's wrong. I LIKE it!"