The Chicago Tribune has a good article raising both sides of the Hamdi Detention Issue--the detaining of American citizens as so-called "enemy-combatants" when no criminal charges are brought, when Congress has not officially declared a war, and when they have not been declared "prisoners of war." Is it legal for the President, as chief executive, on his own to withold basic constitutional rights from these people, such as the right to consult with a lawyer?

"One would hope that we don't start locking people up without giving them a lawyer, judge, jury and charges they can refute," said Frank Dunham, the public defender who has been appointed to represent Hamdi. "Mr. Hamdi is being held on an executive charge, with no opportunity to refute or counter the charge, and that is scary."

No kidding. We also agree that the chief executive shouldn't be able to trump the Courts. That would bring down our entire system.

"There has never been a court case that has acknowledged the unfettered right of the executive to detain--without trial, without any due process, without charges, without access to counsel--a U.S. citizen," said Kenneth Hurwitz, a senior attorney with the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. "There is no precedent whatsoever for the power grab that they are asserting."

Here is the battle shaping up:

"Presidents traditionally are jealous guardians of presidential power, and this White House is perhaps more protective than most. If Doumar [the judge in the Hamdi case] maintains his insistence that Hamdi is entitled to a lawyer and higher courts back him up, and if the White House flatly refuses to comply, it could prompt a constitutional crisis, with the executive and judicial branches both insisting on their powers."

"If you're the president, there is a point at which you will tell [the courts] to go jump in a lake," [Northwestern University law professor Ronald Allen] said. "The risk here is that the courts will be ignored. That would be shattering."