“A divided Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from Jose Padilla, held as an enemy combatant without traditional legal rights for more than three years, sidestepping a challenge to Bush administration wartime detention powers,” reports the Associated Press. “An appeals court panel had all but called for the high court to deal with the case, saying it was troubled by the Bush administration’s change in legal strategy—it brought criminal charges only after it looked like the Supreme Court was going to step in.”

Expect the devious Straussian neocons, mindful of the apparent disinterest of the Supremes, to now go back to their old ways. In the months ahead, as the Iranian “adventure” heats us, we can expect the Straussian neocon Cheka to begin arresting opponents and detaining them in those brand-spanking new Halliburton camps for the duration of the “long war.” After all, those camps are not under construction for illegal aliens, as we are told, but for Bush’s political opponents. Illegals will get an “immigration bill” and “amnesty” because multinational corporations need people willing to work at slave wages.

Remember, after passing the Enabling Act, Hitler set about arresting more than 40,000 opponents, only 4,000 of them communists. Back in 2001, William Safire, a conflicted neocon himself, accused Bush of “seizing dictatorial power.” It’s taken a couple years for the Straussian neocons to line their ducks up in a row.

Getting a pass to indefinitely detain José Padilla and violate his “right to a speedy and public trial” as an American citizen under the Sixth Amendment will serve as a big shot in the arm to the neocons, who are chomping at the bit to use the Constitution as a “goddamn piece of paper,” or maybe a doormat. It seems the Supremes agree with them.