Why did a majority in both houses of Congress, mostly Republicans, choose to endorse George W. Bush’s mis-treatment of detainees and apparent claims of extra-judicial ability to imprison American citizens without trial with designation of “enemy combatant” status by passing the ‘Military Commissions Act’?
Justin Raimondo of antiwar.com writes:

“There has been a great deal of discussion about the Military Commissions Act of 2006 [(.pdf via balkin.blogspot.com)], recently passed by both houses of Congress, and most of it has to do with the provisions allowing torture of alien detainees, that is, of non-citizens apprehended in, say, Afghanistan or Iraq, and their treatment at the hands of their American captors. Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and John Warner, all Republicans, grandstanded for weeks over the torture provisions, then capitulated. Another “Republican maverick,” Arlen Specter, zeroed in on the real issue, however, when he said the bill would set us back 800 years by repealing the habeas corpus protections against arbitrary arrest and jailings – and then went ahead and voted for it, anyway.”