In an unsigned one-page order, the Supreme Court has approved the transfer of Jose Padilla -- once the "dirty bomber" but now just the "whatever" -- from a Navy brig in South Carolina to a federal prison in Miami.

This is, perhaps only temporarily, a victory for the Bush administration and, believe it or not, a real break for Padilla, who has been held in solitary confinement for the last three and a half years.

It may not be such a good thing for the rest of us, because now the Supreme Court may not have to rule on the question of whether the president, in time of war or national emergency and solely on his say-so, has the power to imprison an American citizen incommunicado and indefinitely _ no lawyer, no charges, no trial.

When it looked like Padilla would get his challenge to his detention before the high court, the Bush administration quickly charged him in federal criminal court _ not with plotting to detonate a radiological "dirty bomb" in the United States, as the administration first said, and not with plotting to blow up apartment buildings in the United States, as the administration later said, but with plotting to raise money and recruits to "murder, kidnap and maim" overseas.

That shifting rationale for Padilla's detention and the clear attempt to duck a high-court challenge outraged the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, considered the most conservative and pro-administration of the appeals panels.

In an unusual rebuke, the 4th Circuit refused to approve Padilla's "11th-hour transfer" from the military to the criminal-justice system, and said the administration was leaving the clear impression that it had held Padilla all these years "by mistake."

The Supreme Court may yet hear the case, although the administration argues that it is now moot since Padilla has been charged.

In any event, in the long torturous legal battle since the alleged dirty bomber was arrested in Chicago in May 2002, one voice has been missing _ Padilla's. He will finally get to speak for himself.