Dispatches from Yoo Land

Former Justice Department attorney John Yoo marked the President's signing of the Military Commissions Act by penning an op-ed in Thursday's Wall Street Journal. Here's what he had to say:

During the bitter controversy over the military commission bill, which President Bush signed into law on Tuesday, most of the press and the professional punditry missed the big story. In the struggle for power between the three branches of government, it is not the presidency that "won." Instead, it is the judiciary that lost.

The new law is, above all, a stinging rebuke to the Supreme Court. It strips the courts of jurisdiction to hear any habeas corpus claim filed by any alien enemy combatant anywhere in the world. It was passed in response to the effort by a five-justice majority in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld to take control over terrorism policy. That majority extended judicial review to Guantanamo Bay, threw the Bush military commissions into doubt, and tried to extend the protections of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions to al Qaeda and Taliban detainees, overturning the traditional understanding that Geneva does not cover terrorists, who are not signatories nor "combatants" in an internal civil war under Article 3.

Hamdan was an unprecedented attempt by the court to rewrite the law of war and intrude into war policy. The court must have thought its stunning power grab would go unchallenged.

Yes, it truly was a "stunning power grab," and the Court must have been shocked and dismayed when Congress responded by passing legislation. If you need any more proof of this, look no further than Justice Breyer's megalomaniacal concurring opinion (which was joined by Justices Kennedy, Souter, and Ginsburg):

The Court's conclusion ultimately rests upon a single ground: Congress has not issued the Executive a "blank check." . . . Indeed, Congress has denied the President the legislative authority to create military commissions of the kind at issue here. Nothing prevents the President from returning to Congress to seek the authority he believes necessary.

Where, as here, no emergency prevents consultation with Congress, judicial insistence upon that consultation does not weaken our Nation's ability to deal with danger. To the contrary, that insistence strengthens the Nation's ability to determine--through democratic means--how best to do so. The Constitution places its faith in those democratic means. Our Court today simply does the same.

So let me see if I have this straight, Professor Yoo. First, the President ignores Congress and asserts that he has the authority to engage in activities which are forbidden by existing law. Then, the Court rebukes the President and tells him to go to Congress if he wants additional authority. He then does exactly what the Court told him to do.

In what universe does that amount to a "stinging rebuke" of the Court? Just wondering.