Excuse me, Mr. President ... we're looking over your shoulder ...

Ummm ... excuse me, Mr. President, but do you recall Rumsfeld versus Hamdan ... that was only two months ago, after all.

Admittedly, we've had the breakout of a Civil War in Iraq since then, plus a Middle East crisis of almost Biblical proportions and then, there's the Jon Benet Ramsey confession last week and the 200 or so terrorist threats (airliners, cargo containers, chemistry sets, air bags, etc.) ... but ...

The nine highly astute and unbiased -- but highly judgmental -- Supreme Court justices are waiting to see just what cockamanie ploy you have up your sleeve so as to get around the Geneva Conventions and the War Crime Act that you had been (and likely still are) skirting around.

One rumor has it that you are planning to have Joe Lieberman lead a bill through Congress that would forbid any prisoner to use the Geneva Conventions as a source of rights in any American court. Of course they are trying to convince the other Republicans (Lieberman may be alone among Republicans on this one) and all of the Democrats to agree that this would not change the United States' obligations under the Geneva Conventions. This might get Lieberman the SecDef post after November, but his esteem among members of both parties is likely to erode over this issue.

They are also trying to push through major modifications to the War Crimes Act, but this one is bouncing about in the House of Representatives and Joe Lieberman (who's in the Senate) can only give so much time to supporting Bush's "War on Terror" [sic].

Even if these bills and amendments to existing laws are passed through the Republican-plus-Lieberman Congress, they are sure to be challenged by Constitutional lawyers and even the two new US Supreme Court justices appointed by Mr. Bush are not likely to want their names associated with a low point in Supreme Court decisions, should they support the President on his contention that the torture and such at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib were "above the law" in these perilous times.