Goose the Blog 2.0

What's that sound? The sound of me banging my head against the wall.

Leahy, the incoming chairman of the Judiciary Committee, voted against the Military Commissions Act and denounced its habeas provisions in especially harsh terms. But there are no signs that the new Democratic majority will take on habeas corpus anytime soon. Few Democratic politicians seem enthusiastic about proposing legislation that will principally benefit accused Al Qaeda terrorists, and, in the unlikely event that Democrats passed such a bill, it would face a certain veto from President Bush. The Supreme Court—not Congress—is likely to be the only hope for a change in the law. "This is definitely not going to be the first thing out of the box for us," one Democratic Senate staffer said. "We make fun of Specter, but we’re basically leaving it up to the Courts, too."

That's the final paragraph in a long New Yorker article about how Arlen Specter killed Habeus Corpus. Dammit.