What's interesting about this speech by Kennedy is what he DIDN'T say. It's clear that he understands that Bush's suspension of habeas corpus will likely be before the Supreme Court, so he couldn't comment directly on it, but I think you can deduce where his sympathies lie.
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, speaking in the city where his legal career began, steered clear of his court and its work but had much to say about America's inability to convey democratic ideals to a mistrustful world.
"We are trying to communicate with millions around the world, and make no mistake, the verdict on democracy is still out," Kennedy said in a speech Tuesday night to the Lawyers' Club of San Francisco. "There are many people who have suspended judgment."
In particular, he said, relations between the United States and the Islamic world are shrouded in mutual ignorance and suspicion.
"The world of Islam has a demeaning and false stereotype of us, and we have an even more demeaning and false stereotype of them," Kennedy said, without specifying the shortcomings on either side. The result, he said, is a "dialogue of the deaf."
[..]Kennedy did not give his opinion of the war or its effect on U.S.-Islamic relations. But he appeared to refer to a bill that President Bush signed earlier in the day legalizing the administration's rules for the imprisonment and interrogation of foreign captives, and overturning key portions of a Supreme Court ruling in June.
One provision of the bill would eliminate the right of habeas corpus for most foreign prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other U.S. installations, barring them from going to federal court to challenge their confinement. Kennedy did not mention that provision -- which is likely to come before the Supreme Court -- but referred admiringly to a friend who was a judge on Fiji's high court during a period of insurrection.
"He refused to suspend the writ of habeas corpus and was taken away by the military,'' Kennedy said.
