Overreach Overturned

Addington's Disease

Jane Mayer 's New Yorker profile of Addington, now online, offers some fascinating background on how he worked surreptitiously to create the system the high court so categorically struck down yesterday.

"On November 13, 2001, an executive order setting up the military commissions was issued under Bush's signature. The decision stunned [then-secretary of state Colin] Powell; the national-security adviser, Condoleezza Rice; the highest-ranking lawyer at the C.I.A.; and many judge advocate generals, or JAGs, the top lawyers in the military services. None of them had been consulted. . . . According to multiple sources, Addington secretly usurped the process. He and a few hand-picked associates, including Bradford Berenson and Timothy Flanigan, a lawyer in the White House counsel's office, wrote the executive order creating the commissions. Moreover, Addington did not show drafts of the order to Powell or Rice, who, the senior Administration lawyer said, was incensed when she learned about her exclusion."

Alex Chadwick interviewed Mayer on NPR yesterday, after the ruling.

Said Mayer: "Basically what the court was saying today to this handful of people was, not so fast, there are limits, and the rule of law is more important than executive power. . . .

"[I]t's a huge setback but in particular for one faction inside the White House. It's not really just the whole Bush Administration . . . in fact many of the arguments that the court made today were arguments that were made by other people in the Bush Administration earlier. The State Department, lawyers for the Justice Department, at various points there were other parts of the government that were saying to the White House, and in particular saying to Cheney's office and to David Addington, you're overstepping, you're overreaching. But really the power was so much concentrated in the hands of this small group of people, in particular in Addington's hands, that he was able to formulate a lot of these policies nonetheless, and now they've been struck down."

Deja Vu

It's worth noting, however, that there's a powerful sense of deja vu to this whole story.

Go read my column from almost exactly two years ago , on the occasion of the often-forgotten Supreme Court ruling -- also about detainee rights -- in which then-Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote "A state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation's citizens."

Claude Allen Watch

Stephen Manning writes for the Associated Press: "Former White House adviser Claude Allen is negotiating with prosecutors in hopes of avoiding a trial on theft charges, according to his attorney.

"Allen was to go on trial Friday for allegedly trying to make fraudulent returns worth at least $5,000 at Target and other stores.

"But Montgomery County prosecutors and Allen's attorneys have agreed to postpone the trial while negotiations continue, according to Allen lawyer Gregory Craig. He would not elaborate on the talks."

Poll Watch

Ronald Brownstein writes in the Los Angeles Times: "President Bush's job approval rating is up slightly, but discontent over the Iraq war, especially among women, is continuing to boost Democratic prospects in the struggle for control of Congress, a Times/Bloomberg poll has found. . . .

"Bush's 41% job approval rating represented an increase within the poll's margin of error from his 39% showing in April. Similarly, 56% disapproved of his performance, virtually unchanged from 57% in April. And Bush still faces an intensity gap: The share of Americans who strongly disapproved of his performance (40%) remained more than double the share who strongly approved (18%)."

Here are the complete results .

Dana Blanton writes for Fox News: "A new FOX News poll finds that President George W. Bush is holding onto the gains he made earlier in the month as his approval rating comes in at 41 percent."

Here are those complete results .

Froomkin Watch

I'm on Washington Post Radio today, shortly after 2 p.m. And the column is taking a long Independence Day Weekend. It will resume on Wednesday, July 5. I'll also be Live Online that afternoon at 1 p.m. ET.

George Bush, the Supreme Court's Just Ruled Against You, What Are You Going to Do Now?

He's going to Graceland .