What Dr. Taylor wrote earlier this afternoon, coupled with my earlier post suggests that the “frame” of the recent Supreme Court decision regarding Guantanamo has already been written - and both sides are going in the same direction for different reasons.

On the one hand, Steyn is up in arms, declaring that there is some “right to jihad.” On the other, the New York Times calls the case “the case for which the term will go down in history.”

Both are overreactions, but reinforce a frame that is convenient to partisans on the right and the left. The right sees the court as attacking the president during war time, the left sees the court rebuking presidential overreach. The truth, naturally, is somewhere in the middle.

I fully agree with Dr. Taylor’s comment, that should be bolded:

For one thing, the Hamdan cases essentially limited the kind of tribunal that could be used against the prinsoners at Guantanamo, and left room open for the legislature to give the President what he wants in that regard. While I fully understand that the case has implications beyond that narrow issue, the notion that this case represents some major defeat in the war on terror for the US is simply an over-reaction. The notion that the only way we can be safe is for the President to be able to do whatever he thinks is necessary is a non sequitur.