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Bush Pledges to Obey, Analyze Court's Ruling

Met with news that the Supreme Court has blocked his administration's plans for military tribunals at the Guantanamo Bay prison, President Bush says the White House will study the decision. The court said the administration's approach does not meet the standards of international law or federal statutes.

But it also left the door open for Congress to authorize changes in the law. "We will conform to the Supreme Court," the president said. But he also hinted that the government would explore the option of creating laws to enable it to hold military tribunals for enemy combatants.

"To the extent that the Congress is given any latitude to develop a way forward using military tribunals," President Bush said, "we will work with them."

Later in the day, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow argued that the ruling does not say that the president has overreached in terms of his authority to deal with Guantanamo detainees. The Supreme Court "hasn't said you can't bring them to justice," Snow said.

He added that the court requires the White House to work with Congress to formalize the process.

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You're most likely to find NPR's Don Gonyea on the road, in some battleground state looking for voters to sit with him at the local lunch spot, the VFW or union hall, at a campaign rally, or at their kitchen tables to tell him what's on their minds. Through countless such conversations over the course of the year, he gets a ground-level view of American elections. Gonyea is NPR's National Political Correspondent, a position he has held since 2010. His reports can be heard on all NPR News programs and at NPR.org. To hear his sound-rich stories is akin to riding in the passenger seat of his rental car, traveling through Iowa or South Carolina or Michigan or wherever, right along with him.