by JAMES TARANTO
Thursday, June 29, 2006 3:10 P.M. EDT

Justice Delayed
The Supreme Court's decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (link above in HTML or here in PDF) weighs in at 185 pages, and we'll confess we haven't had time to read every word. But here are the major points:

• Although Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the court's primary opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy decided the case. Kennedy joined Stevens and the three other "liberal" justices in some aspects of the case, yielding a 5-3 majority, but declined to join others, producing an inconclusive result on those issues. (Because Chief Justice John Roberts joined the lower-court decision the Supreme Court was overturning, he did not participate in today's ruling but can be assumed to agree with the three dissenters.)
  
  
• The Kennedy majority agreed that the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, which grants the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia sole jurisdiction over habeas corpus petitions filed by Guantanamo detainees, does not strip the Supreme Court of jurisdiction in this case, because Hamdan had already filed for the writ when Congress passed the act.
  
  
• The Kennedy majority held that the military commission the Pentagon set up to try Hamdan was not authorized by the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
  
  
• The Stevens plurality wanted to go further and hold that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions--which provides that war crimes trials be conducted by "a regularly constituted court"--requires that Hamdan be present at his trial, even if sensitive intelligence is being aired. But Kennedy thought it unnecessary to reach a conclusion on this question.
  
  
• The Stevens plurality also wanted to declare the charge against Hamdan--conspiracy--invalid under international law. Kennedy again saw no reason to reach the question.

The court did not decide that unlawful combatants at Guantanamo are entitled to Geneva Convention protections as either civilians or prisoners of war, only that Common Article 3, which governs "conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the [signatories]," applies--though because of Kennedy's demurral, precisely how it applies is an open question.

(In dissent, Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas argued that Common Article 3 does not apply to the conflict with al Qaeda--a position Roberts also took in the lower court's decision [PDF]. Scalia and Thomas, along with Justice Samuel Alito, also take the position that even if Common Article 3 does apply, the commission qualified as "regularly constituted.")

The court also did not hold that the government is under any obligation to release Hamdan. Justice Stevens:

We have assumed . . . the truth of the message implicit in that charge--viz., that Hamdan is a dangerous individual whose beliefs, if acted upon, would cause great harm and even death to innocent civilians, and who would act upon those beliefs if given the opportunity. It bears emphasizing that Hamdan does not challenge, and we do not today address, the Government's power to detain him for the duration of active hostilities in order to prevent such harm.

For now at least, the court has not mandated that terrorist detainees be granted the rights of either ordinary criminal defendants (who cannot be held indefinitely unless charged and convicted) or prisoners of war (who, among other things, cannot be interrogated).

The chief result of this ruling will be to delay the trials of Guantanamo detainees until Congress or the Pentagon establishes a regime of military commissions that meets the court's approval. For those concerned with the duration of terrorists' captivity--a perverse thing to worry about anyway--there's little to cheer here.

Can This Guy Count to 11?
Writing on the Puffington Host, Philip Slater, who in 1982 "was chosen by MS. Magazine as one of its 'male heroes,' " says war is bad, and America is extra bad for waging it:

Perhaps the reason Americans seem so comfortable about bombing and invading little countries around the world is that the United States, unlike Europe, has never experienced "collateral damage". If we had ever been bombed and invaded ourselves, had our infrastructure demolished, been subject to foreign soldiers breaking into our homes at night, seen our children slaughtered and our houses destroyed, we would be, I suspect, less gung-ho about war and less cavalier about inflicting these horrors on other people.

If you take this guy at his word, he actually has never heard of Sept. 11.

Shock the Monkey
The New York Times, still failing to produce any Shakespeare, blasts the Supreme Court for mostly upholding a Republican gerrymander of Texas' congressional districts:

The new lines were drawn in such a partisan way that Republicans ended up with nearly two-thirds of the state's Congressional delegation. . . . It is disappointing that [the court] could not have come up with a decision yesterday that had a greater appearance of fairness.

Well, let's take a closer look. Under the previous, Democratic gerrymander (with which the Times finds no fault), Texas' congressional delegation consisted of 17 Democrats and 15 Republicans. After the gerrymander, Republicans had a 21-11 majority.

The new delegation, to be sure, favors the majority party more lopsidedly than the old one did. But does that mean it is less "fair"? If so, then New York's congressional delegation, in which the Democrats hold a 20-9 majority (i.e., more than two-thirds), is even less "fair" and more "partisan."

But of course Texas is a Republican state and New York is a Democratic one. You would expect the party that dominates a state to elect more representatives. How many more? Well, let's take the 2004 presidential results as our benchmark. Here are the percentages of the two-party vote Bush and Kerry got in Texas and in New York:

Now, here is how the victorious presidential candidate's party fares in each state's congressional delegation, and the difference from the presidential share:

So by this measure at least, Texas' new gerrymander better represents the voters' preferences than New York's, which in turn does so better than Texas' old gerrymander. It is disappointing that the Times could not have come up with an editorial that had a greater appearance of fairness.

Great Orators of the Democratic Party

• "One man with courage makes a majority."--Andrew Jackson
  
  
• "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."--Franklin D. Roosevelt
  
  
• "The buck stops here."--Harry S. Truman
  
  
• "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."--John F. Kennedy
  
  
• "So I ask my fellow Senators, are we really that frightened of somebody's willingness to go out and be stupid? In the United States of America, you have a right to be stupid."--John Kerry (PDF)

Flaming Flags--II
Following up on yesterday's item about flag-burning, a reader calls our attention to a "note" from Caslon Analytics, an Australian consulting firm, which summarizes various countries' laws on the matter:

• Along with the U.S., Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom do not prohibit burning or otherwise disrespecting the national flag.
  
  
• Austria, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Hungary, Iran, Iraq, Italy, "Palestine," Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan and Turkey all do have such laws. (Austria's was "inherited from the Third Reich"!)
  
  
• Denmark, Japan, Norway and Sweden have laws protecting foreign flags, but not their own.

And Homer nods: Our characterization yesterday of a Jonathan Alter quote--"every word of this is true except the initial 'the' "--wasn't quite right, since the verb in the sentence in question was include. We rewrote it to say the quote was "true but misleading."

Another item said that "Hamas (Fatah too) 'recognizes' Israel in the sense that, to take a random example, Nicole Simpson recognized her murderer." We changed that to read ". . . Nicole Simpson's murderer recognized her."

Two sloppily worded sentences in one day suggest that we could use a vacation.

What's Up, Doc?
Yesterday's item poking fun at people with Ph.D.s for not being "real doctors" prompted a reader to send us a Web page by Steven Dutch, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, who disagrees:

A common complaint is that people with Ph.D.'s call themselves "doctor," but they aren't real doctors.

If you buy this, you just demonstrated your total lack of qualification to deal with experts in anything. The word "doctor" comes from the Latin verb docere, meaning to teach. Doctor in Latin means "teacher," and was applied in the Middle Ages to anyone who had mastered a subject well enough to teach it at a University. It wasn't until rather late that medicine was even added to the University curriculum at all. As for surgeons, they were regarded as tradesmen and manual workers until nearly 1800.

Oh dear, what will we do without experts?

Taranto Teaches
"The concept of a removable and separately launderable bib for infant garments is generally well known. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,608,092, Taranto teaches an infant bib which is permanently attachable to an upper torso infant garment, the bib being composed of a unique multi-layer arrangement of materials to achieve bib protection without annoying the infant."--"Infant Garment and Removable Bib," U.S. Patent Application No. 20060010558, Jan. 19

If You're Not With St. Louis, You're With Kansas City
"Bush Promotes War, Candidate in Missouri"--headline, Associated Press, June 28

Whatever, Dude!
"Putin May Join Some Political Party"--headline, RBCNews.com, June 28

Insert Kerry Joke Here

"School Board Flip-Flops on Flip-Flops"--headline, Associated Press, June 29

"Are Flip-Flops Damaging Your Career?"--headline, Reuters, June 29

Does It Involve Storm Troopers?
"Romania Probes 'Foreign Plot' to Worsen Its Weather"--headline, Agence France-Presse, June 29

12 Angry Droids
"Prosecution Urges Jury to Stop Hiring Machine"--headline, Chicago Sun-Times, June 28

140 Years Young
"Russia Has 140-Plus Youth Extremist Groups--Minister"--headline, Russian News and Information Agency Novosti, June 28

Second Prize Is Two Meetings
"Winner to Meet With Young Republicans"--headline, Star-Gazette (Elmira, N.Y.), June 29

You Don't Say
"Borrowing Costs Linked to Rate Hikes"--headline, Associated Press, June 28

Thanks for the Tip!--LXXXVI
"Health Tip: Take Care of Those Braces"--headline, HealthDay.com, June 29

Bottom Stories of the Day

• "Dog Dies in Townhouse Fire"--headline, KPRC-TV Web site (Houston), June 28
  
  
• "Newspaper Ad Helps Woman Get Dog Back"--headline, Kalamazoo (Mich.) Gazette, June 28
  
  
• "Neighbors Wonder What Will Become of Bread Sign Atop Factory"--headline, Seattle Times, June 28
  
  
• "Conspiracy Theorists Unmoved by British UFO Denial"--headline, Reuters, June 28

Life in the Fast Lane
"There's certainly no guarantee of success," President Bush said before the liberation of Iraq got under way. "But I damn sure know that if we don't do anything, nothing will change. And I damn sure know that it's a time for action, not navel-gazing."

Oops, sorry! That wasn't President Bush, it was Diane Wilson, in a recent interview. Who, you ask, is Diane Wilson? We'll let her tell you:

I'm a fisherwoman, a shrimper. I battle with fish, not with words. I don't get into that intellectual stuff battling with worlds [sic]. I don't really care what you call it; I'm just gonna stop eatin'. I'm just a shrimper whose gonna stop eatin' to stop the war.

She plans to start a hunger strike next Tuesday:

My goal is to bring the troops home, to stop killing the Iraqi people. I don't know how long I can fast, but I'm making this an open-ended fast. I plan to take this as far as I've ever taken anything in my 58 years. I think that everything in my life has led me to this point. I fear our future is at stake, and I'm ready to make a major sacrifice.

Why? To stop America from being evil:

Look, the fate of our nation is at stake. If we allow this war to continue, it's just a matter of time before we invade another country, like Iran or maybe even Venezuela. We can't just lay down like a mat and let this administration walk all over us. You know that line about "all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing"? We have to do something to stop evil.

She wants you to join her, and you don't even have to stop eating:

A lot of people have families to take care of and work obligations or busy travel schedules. For those people, a liquid fast makes more sense. They can drink fruit juices, or anything that's liquid--just no solid food. People can make their choice about how to fast--whether water only or a liquid fast.

And here she lays out her exit strategy:

I've learned to trust my instincts, my gut feelings, and my gut tells me that with this fast, we can create the space for change to happen. I don't know exactly what that will be. But I know that boldness can be magical. I believe that we can create miracles when we put the intent out there. And I'm willing to stake my life on it!

Boldness can be Magical, producing Miracles in the Space Where Change Happens. So have a milkshake!

(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Tom Linehan, C.E. Dobkin, Aaron Ammerman, Paul Dyck, Christopher Anderson, John Williamson, Dan O'Shea, Mark Van Der Molen, Doug Levene, Chris Stacy, Scott Wright, Christopher Desmond, Monica Muron, Tom Brosz, Marc Whinston, Lynne Schatz, Nancy Burstein, Chris Fountain, Joseph Carragher, Jamie Barends, Jim Carson, Ray Burnham, Christopher Arfaa, Mike Miller, Debbie Henkin, Beth Boyer, Michael Lustig, Ned Wynn, David Hanig, Joel Engel, Kevin Corrigan, Dennis White, Rex Pilger, Greg Martine, Dori Monson, Jim Moran, Ed Diaz, Ethel Fenig, Louis Kastens, Chuck Opramolla, Michael Goldman, Daniel Foty, Michael Harlow, Monty Goolsby, Nicholas Zeisler, Ruth Papazian, Mary Tarpy, Michael Aracic and David Hancock. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

• Review & Outlook: The Supreme Court leaves gerrymanders to the politicians.
• Peggy Noonan: Contrarian thoughts on Hillary, flag-burning, the Times and "The View."
• Fred Barnes: Gov. Mark Warner persuaded Virginia Republicans to raise taxes. His successor tried and failed.
• Rob Pollock: Ron Suskind is the Michael Moore of authors.