Note that he declares that he is "willing to abide by the ruling of the Supreme Court." Of course, by constitutional law he MUST follow Court rulings, but presumably may not be willing in future cases so he announces willingness IN THIS SPECIFIC CASE.) Ed
" I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave." -- H. L. Mencken, "Why Liberty?" Jan. 30, 1927 July 8, 2006 Justices Tacitly Backed Use of Guantánamo, Bush Says By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG THE NEW YORK TIMES WASHINGTON, July 7 - In his most detailed comments to date on the Supreme Court's rejection of his decision to put detainees on trial before military commissions, President Bush said Friday that the court had tacitly approved his use of the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. "It didn't say we couldn't have done - couldn't have made that decision, see?" Mr. Bush said at a news conference in Chicago. "They were silent on whether or not Guantánamo - whether or not we should have used Guantánamo. In other words, they accepted the use of Guantánamo, the decision I made." Mr. Bush's remarks put a favorable spin on a ruling that has been widely interpreted as a rebuke of the administration's policies in the war on terror. The court, ruled broadly last week in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that military commissions were unauthorized by statute and violated international law. The question of whether Mr. Bush had properly used Guantánamo Bay to house detainees was not at issue in the case. At issue was whether the president could unilaterally establish military commissions with rights different from those allowed at a court-martial to try detainees for war crimes. Mr. Bush has said since the ruling that he will work with Congress to figure out how to use military commissions to try detainees, a promise he repeated on Friday in Chicago. "I am willing to abide by the ruling of the Supreme Court," the president said. The Chicago news conference, which featured local reporters asking the president questions alongside the regular members of the White House press corps, was designed by the White House to give the president more exposure in the country at a time when his poll numbers are declining and Americans are uneasy with his leadership on the economy and the war in Iraq. But members of the Chicago press did not serve up softball questions. The issue of Mr. Bush's polls came up when a reporter asked about a fund-raiser the president planned to attend for Judy Baar Topinka, the Republican candidate for Illinois governor. "An aide to Judy Topinka was quoted as saying that given your low approval ratings in the polls, they prefer you to come here in the middle of the night," the reporter said. "Didn't work," Mr. Bush replied. "I'm coming to lunch." The president also gave an endorsement of sorts to Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor who handled a leak investigation involving Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's chief political adviser. Mr. Bush said Mr. Fitzgerald, who is also the United States attorney in Chicago, had done a "very professional job" in handling the leak investigation, which resulted in the indictment of I. Lewis Libby Jr., the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Rove was not indicted. *** Good Health Care, Aussie Style By Susanna Rodell July 6, 2006 by the Providence Journal http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/projo_20060706_06aus.12dc708.html Whenever the lament goes up about the awful health-care system in America, there's a predictable response: Yes, we have our problems, but this country still has the best health care in the world. To those who still think this is true, I'd like to introduce Billy Badger, of the Australian state of Tasmania. Dr. Badger (a Ph.D., not a medical doctor) inhabits the office next to mine at the University of Tasmania. He is a professor of German. He is also the brand-new father of a baby girl. Billy has no private health insurance. He and his wife, Christina, have relied entirely on the public system for prenatal care, for the birth, and for postnatal care of baby and mother. I asked him to describe the experience. "We had no idea what to expect," he told me. Both parents were healthy and had never as adults set foot in a hospital. Upon finding out they were expecting a baby, they went to a doctor, who directed them to the maternity ward at the Royal Hobart Hospital. At the Royal, Hobart's big public hospital, they were given the choice of three systems: 1) They could go to a birthing center, run entirely by midwives. 2) They could go to a doctor at the hospital. 3) Or they could stay in the hospital and use a system called KYM, which stands for Know Your Midwife: At prenatal visits they would meet all the hospital's midwives, so that whoever was on duty when the time came, it would be someone familiar. Christina and Billy chose the KYM system. At first monthly, they visited the hospital's maternity unit and had checkups with midwives. As the pregnancy advanced, the intervals between visits were shorter, becoming weekly in the last month. They saw an obstetrician at their first visit and at the 20th and 36th weeks. If the midwives had seen any problems, the couple would have seen a doctor more often. "We were never kept waiting at any of these appointments for more than five minutes," Billy said. "There were five or six midwives in all, and they were all pretty good. It was like a family; you had a community feeling." On the day that Christina went into labor, she and Billy went to the hospital, at first to a PAC, or Pregnancy Assessment Center. This was a two-bed hospital room with a bathroom attached, where Christina was monitored until the staff judged her to be fully in labor. Then they went to the birthing suite. The suite consisted of a large room with a double bed, a table and chairs, and its own adjoining bathroom. "It was comfortable," said Billy. "It was clean enough in a hospital sense, but also homey enough." Here the midwives kept an eye on the couple but also tried to stay out of the way unless they were needed. The birth was straightforward. Emergency equipment was available, just in case, and a doctor was also present, but a midwife eased the baby into the world as Billy stayed in bed with Christina. "You didn't necessarily get the feeling you were being watched or intruded on," Billy said. "It was more like we were doing it, and they were there to help." For example, after the birth a midwife lifted the baby's legs and said, "Have a look and see what you've got" -- rather than telling them the child's sex. "After that they left us pretty much alone," Billy said. "The baby was obviously all right, so they just left us for about an hour." Any time they needed help, it was nearby. Billy, Christina, and the baby stayed together in the suite for five days, just getting to know each other and calling on the staff when they needed a little help with establishing breast-feeding and giving the baby her first bath. "We could have stayed for up to two weeks if we had wanted," Billy recalled with wonderment. The food was good, too -- a special menu, since the couple are vegetarians. When they decided to go home, the staff encouraged them to stay another night if they felt at all unsure. The staff also said that the new family could come back and stay a few more nights, if needed, up to the two-week limit. When the family left, they took with them free diapers and baby wipes. Whatever was needed, said Billy, "if you didn't have it, you got it." After the family was home, midwives visited every day for three days. A child-health-service nurse also visited, giving Christina and Billy phone numbers they could call at any time of day or night with any problem. Christina made an appointment with a postnatal physical therapist, who spent 45 minutes with her, coaching her on exercises to get her body back in shape. In six weeks she will be able to go to postnatal-exercise classes with her baby. How much, I asked Billy, did all this cost the couple? Nothing, said Billy. Not the prenatal care, not the hospital, not the supplies, not the postnatal care, not the physical therapy. He and Christina have not spent a penny. And there's more. In the next few weeks, the couple will receive a check from the government for $3,500, to help with the expenses of a new child. How does Australia pay for all this? With a flat 1.5-percent levy on everyone's income, plus a 1-percent surcharge on people with higher incomes ($50,000 for an individual, $100,000 for a family). So if your taxable income is $45,000, you pay $675 a year. Still think we in America have the world's best health-care system? Susanna Rodell, editorial-page editor of The Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette, is teaching journalism at the University of Tasmania. © 2006 The Providence Journal Co. ____________________________________________ portside (the left side in nautical parlance) is a news, discussion and debate service of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. It aims to provide varied material of interest to people on the left. 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