Hopeful Hypocrisy

Justice O'Connor has called for more clear rules on enemy combatants in a speech at West Point. Given that fact that she is one of the individuals who is, to a great degree, responsible for the fact that the rules are muddled right now, there is an irony in it, but the gist of her comments certainly should be encouraging for the Hamdan Plaintiffs (a group of Guantanamo Bay detainees seeking habeas corpus relief whose petition for certiorari is current pending before the U.S. Supreme Court).

I've been skeptical of efforts to derail Harriet Miers as a U.S. Supreme Court nominee, out of the fear that if her nomination is defeated, that the person nominated to replace her will be worse. But, if that would keep Justice O'Connor on the court for another six months for cases like Hamdam, it might be worth it to join the mostly conservative led effort to defeat Miers and hand George W. Bush a major defeat.