"There
is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people
running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it
Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zen Buddhist,
Zionist/Seventh-Day Adventist, Women's Lib/Republican,
Mattachine/FourSquareGospel, feel it has the will, the right, the
duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who
sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge
unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any
author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery
rhyme."
- Ray Bradbury
More
committed to protecting his political friends than upholding the rule
of law, Alberto Gonzales' tenure as U.S. attorney general has been
characterized by his tendency to be a political "yes man" and a
manipulator of the law.
On March 28, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia took his seat at
the nation’s highest court to hear Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. His task, along
with the other justices, was to determine whether Salim Hamdan, a
captured enemy combatant, should be afforded a fair and basic trial.
The court would hear, for the first time, arguments from both sides
over whether Hamdan should be afforded basic due process rights as a
war-time detainee – an outcome that would establish a dramatic
precedent in American law governing times of war.
