I just finished reading the majority and concurring opinions in Hamdan and before moving on to the dissents, had a couple of practical and political thoughts, and one random thought.

 1)  The concurrences made clear that Congress could give the President the authority to formulate tribunals.  And the procedures required in those tribunals was NOT decided by Hamdan, as Kennedy did not join on to that portion of the opinion. 

 2)  So the political solution is for Bush to immediate ask Congress for authority to constitute the tribunals, under the formulation he had already established.  Again, Kennedy’s concurrence here is key because Kennedy indicated that such tribunals could be “regularly constituted tribunals” for purposes of the Treaty. 

3)  Politically, Hamdan is the ideal Gitmo detainee to focus on, given that he was Bin Laden’s bodyguard.  Putting this issue before Congress with up coming fall elections would seemingly benefit the President and republicans.

 4)  If Congress passes such a law and that is challenged, the Chief Justice would no longer need to recuse, which could sway the balance.

 5)  The majority made clear that its opinion in no way meant that the government could not continue to hold detainees while hostilities continued.  Its been a while since I’ve been knee deep in these issues, but given that point, couldn’t the government just keep holding Hamdan and others while the war on terror continues (which will be until the Second Coming.)

 6)  Finally, the majority notes that some of the charged Hamdan’s conduct occurred before 9-11-2001.  However, Al Queda engaged in war before then with the first World Trade Center bombing, among other things, so 9-11 wasn’t the beginning of the war–it was just our wake-up call that war had been declared against us.