Let us now remember the importance of habeas corpus

The Supreme Court, remembering the importance of its own role in upholding the rule of law, ruled that detainees at Guantanamo Bay have the right of habeas corpus, or the right to challenge their detention in US courts. I'm not a lawyer, but I agree with the ruling as far as I understand it. Also, it apparently displeased George Bush, and that can only be a good thing. David Bromwich sums up the debate and some of the political implications at HuffPost. Barack Obama agreed with the decision.

Obama's statement about the decision is fairly straightforward, pretty much what you expect. But the occasion of this decision got me thinking about Gitmo and constitutional rights generally. One reason that I am optimistic about Obama's campaign, and his presidency in general, is that his background as a constitutional scholar will undoubtedly come in handy. The man taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago. That's one of the best schools in the country, and one of the most conservative. I'm sure Obama will understand the actual constitutional principles at issue very quickly. More importantly, he will figure out how to respond to conservatives in terms of those actual principles.

There are a fair number of people in this country who can read this decision and understand it. Barack Obama is in that group. Of those people, there is a much smaller number, maybe just a handful, who can translate it into layman's terms very easily. Again, Barack Obama is in that group. Having taught constitutional law, he has a lot of experience explaining its principles. And there is an even smaller group who can take that translation into layman's terms and get a crowd fired up over the defense of the Constitution. There is only one person in that last group, and his name is Barack Obama.