Congress Could Cave In, But Should It? (Nadelhoffer)

Given my recent post (see here) on the Congress-assisted about-face the Bush administration is hoping to do with respect to the ruling in Hamdan, I thought it was worth linking to this article in The New York Times from today.  Several prominent legal scholars point out that while Congress certainly has the authority to exempt America from the Geneva Conventions, it would be folly to do so.  As Harold Hongju Koh--dean of Yale Law School--suggests, “the fact that no other country has done it is a sign that this would be a momentous and potentially catastrophic step...do we want to encourage the parliaments of every country in the world that wants to abuse, humiliate and torture our soldiers to reinterpret the Geneva Conventions?”  That exempting ourselves from the Geneva Conventions would represent a "momentous and potentially catastrophic step" gives me every reason to expect that it is precisely what W's dutiful servants in Congress will do.  One small step forward for Bush and his ilk, one giant step backwards for humanity.  It's the Bush three-step--for every step we take in the wrong direction, we promptly take two more in the same direction.  Which reminds me--what does W's Director of Lessons Learned get paid $100,000+ to do again (see here for details)?