by TChris

Even as the Pentagon claims to have been "caught off guard" by the Supreme Court's reminder that the executive branch of government does not possess limitless, unchecked power, Prof. Jonathan Turley points out that "we dodged this bullet by a hair's breadth — and the system seemed to triumph only by default."

The notion that the President and those he commands can do anything they please to anyone they label an "enemy" should seem alien to those who believe in the values embodied in the Constitution. Most Americans didn't think Kafka was writing about the United States when he imagined a faceless state that provided men with no opportunity to answer the unstated charges against them. Turley sounds a warning: we have "a system at risk," evidenced by the administration's attempt to defend the indefinite detention of persons without charges or access to courts, and by the failure of Congress to act as a check against that abuse of authority.

This left the Supreme Court. Although the court ruled against the president, it may have proved to be the most dysfunctional of all the branches in its reasoning and results.

Find out why.