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Gitmo is not going anywhere.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  June 26th, 2010 at 10:45 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

‘Zounds (Via Hot Air Headlines):

Stymied by political opposition and focused on competing priorities, the Obama administration has sidelined efforts to close the Guantánamo prison, making it unlikely that President Obama will fulfill his promise to close it before his term ends in 2013.

The “‘zounds” (which, by the way and in case you ever wondered, is short for ‘God’s wounds’) is not quite sardonic, but only because it’s aimed at those poor unfortunates who are relying on the NYT for their news, instead of, well, me. I have been waxing most sarcastic about about this administration’s Gitmo policy, which upon review seems to have fallen out of the Stupid Policy Decision Tree and hit every branch on the way down. It takes skill to find a working methodology that both the Left and the Right can equally despise, but this administration seems to have been up for the challenge when it comes to our detention policy.

But as whines go, this one from the White House is fantastic:

“The president can’t just wave a magic wand to say that Gitmo will be closed,” said a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal thinking on a sensitive issue.

Sure the President can: it’s called an ‘executive order,’ and there’s a whole phalanx of lawyers available to the White House capable of crafting one into something that lets him do precisely that. What the ‘senior administration official’ didn’t care to say was that the President doesn’t dare wave a magic wand to say that Gitmo will be closed – which is another thing entirely.

A considerably more craven thing.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

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  • JadedByPolitics

    I would have liked to win obamacare but NOT having terrorists on United States soil is a great thing to have stopped this idiot on!

  • partyof1

    January 22, 2009

    “We will be setting up a process” to figure out the logistics of closing down Guantanamo, Obama told reporters gathered in the Oval Office of the White House.

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28788175/

    “set up a process” to figure out the logistics?

    In other words, he never intended to close it down. He wants Gitmo because we need Gitmo and everybody knows it. He just doesn’t have the bells to stand up and say so like a man.

    Like a leader.

  • joecollins

    and a tip of the hat to Dick Cheney too.

  • mustango

    I think Candidate Obama was more than naive enough to think shuttering Gitmo would be a simple task and without consequence.

    As I recall it, in fact, Obama originally said out loud that a plan was in place, only to be corrected by someone on his staff and amending it to what you quoted.

  • Superheater

    He can’t wave a wand to close Gitmo, he can’t suck up the oil with a straw, what kind of demigod is Obama?

  • http://www.redstate.com/tnjim TNJim
  • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

    especially given the outrageous things he already has done, many of which are as bad or worse than what he balks at.

    But one has to also factor in that Obama is very persistent, patient and lawless, and should be expected to simply act as the Thug he is after months of frustration with troublesome congresses, courts and townhalls.

    Can’t get ObamaCare after it dies thrice? Kill faux pro-life democrats and pass it.

    Can’t get congress to bankrupt the coal industry and teach us a lesson with high energy taxes? Re-interpret enviro laws to impose your will on businesses; ban deep water oil drilling

    Can’t get Gitmo closed and put Bush on trial by KSM proxy in NYT? Eventually Obama may conduct a military tribunal of his making in Gitmo.

    Can’t get Lindsey Graham to agree to letting the Dem Party sign up 20 million voters in one day in exchange for not letting Mexico annex Arizona?

    Grant amnesty to 20 million yourself and have new AZ voters choose to be so annexed.

    megalomaniac

  • merryj1

    …that “Zounds” is derived from “God’s Wounds.” Here’s another one I like: That (English) “bloody” this and “bloody” that was a contraction of “By Our Lady,” which fell a bit into disuse after Henry dissed the Church so he would be able to trade in Katherine of Aragon for Anne Bolyn.

  • kchand

    … he could wear new loafers for months and not have any scuff marks of the soles.

  • spepper

    yes, it is interesting– 2 of Obama’s major campaign issues of 2008 were: end the WARS (Afghanistan AND Iraq), and close GITMO, which the President of the United States is in every way, legally and constitutionally, authorized to do, he has not only not done them, but is firmly continuing on the very things that Bush was ultimately denigrated for doing– such is the nature of pure politics: “It’s BAD if YOUR guy does it, but GOOD if MY guy does exactly the same……”

  • Right_Again

    When you say things like this:

    “Generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal…”

    and then things like this:

    I can’t just suck the oil up through a straw.

    or:

    I can’t just wave a magic wand to say that Gitmo will be closed.

    we start to question the validity of your Messianic greatness. Who has the fairy dust if you don’t?

  • tngal

    See they gave it to him on what he was going to do. Although, I didn’t know you could get a Nobel for golf. hmm.

  • Common_Cents

    I am concerned about all those naive hopey changey people who voted for him. How could so many fall for that crap and ignore any sense of reality?

  • m_quick

    It was one of his first:

    “Promising to return America to the “moral high ground” in the war on terrorism, President Obama issued three executive orders Thursday to demonstrate a clean break from the Bush administration, including one requiring that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility be closed within a year.”

    http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/22/guantanamo.order/index.html

    So what happened to that?

    Why would he put all his political capital into passing the stimulus and health care and completely forget about closing Gitmo? The only conclusion I can draw from it is that he doesn’t care about it that much.

    This is going to hurt him when it comes election time. I think a lot of people voted for him because of his whole anti-war persona. He was the only candidate not to support war with Iraq from the beginning (mostly because he wasn’t even in the Senate then), now he’s the only candidate who had a chance to close Gitmo and didn’t.

  • Beasley Beesmeal