Anthony Lewis: New SCOTUS could give Bush a blank check

[funflower]

By ANTHONY LEWIS
Published: October 15, 2005

BOSTON

THE most profound issue that will face the Supreme Court in the coming years is not the one animating many of the conservatives angry at Harriet Miers's nomination to the court, abortion. It is presidential power.

(snip)

The Bush administration has often resisted checks on executive branch decisions taken under the heading of war power. In memorandums in 2002 and 2003 on the torture of prisoners, for example, the administration argued that the president could order the use of torture even if it was forbidden by treaty or by Congressional statute.

(snip)

How are Chief Justice Roberts and Harriet Miers, if she is confirmed, likely to decide on issues of presidential power? Predictions can only be speculative, but there is a possible clue in the case of Chief Justice Roberts. As one member of a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Judge Roberts joined an opinion that paid great deference to presidential orders in ruling that the military could resume war crimes trials of terrorism suspects detained at Guantánamo.

Harriet Miers has no public record on these issues. But Professor Yoo, writing in The Washington Post after her nomination, said, "She may be one of the key supporters in the Bush administration of staying the course on legal issues arising from the war on terrorism." He did not explain.

(more)

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/15/opinion/15LEWIS.html

[Boo Boo]

1. IMO this is why Bush picked her, and it's all the reason anyone

should need to reject her nomination.