“Well, I didn’t mean CLOSE Guantanamo!”

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

“They bought it, Rahm!“

“I mean, I meant it when I said it. You know?”

“But… heh. That was a campaigning thing, you know? And it worked, too! Right? Right.”

“You don’t really expect me to go all bipartisany on you and do what Lindsay Graham wants me to do, do you? DO YOU? He’s a republican! WTF do you want from me?”

“Heh. Shut the fcuk up, Helen.”

“Next question?”

…………………………

NYT friday:

WASHINGTON – 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.

When the White House acknowledged last year that it would miss Mr. Obama’s initial January 2010 deadline for shutting the prison, it also declared that the detainees would eventually be moved to one in Illinois. But impediments to that plan have mounted in Congress, and the administration is doing little to overcome them.

“There is a lot of inertia” against closing the prison, “and the administration is not putting a lot of energy behind their position that I can see,” said Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and supports the Illinois plan. He added that “the odds are that it will still be open” by the next presidential inauguration.

And Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who also supports shutting it, said the effort is “on life support and it’s unlikely to close any time soon.” He attributed the collapse to some fellow Republicans’ “demagoguery” and the administration’s poor planning and decision-making “paralysis.”

[snip]

Last year, for example, the administration stood aside as lawmakers restricted the transfer of detainees into the United States except for prosecution. And its response was silence several weeks ago, Mr. Levin said, as the House and Senate Armed Services Committees voted to block money for renovating the Illinois prison to accommodate detainees, and to restrict transfers from Guantánamo to other countries – including, in the Senate version, a bar on Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia. About 130 of the 181 detainees are from those countries.

“They are not really putting their shoulder to the wheel on this issue,” Mr. Levin said of White House officials. “It’s pretty dormant in terms of their public positions.”

[snip]

In any case, one senior official said, even if the administration concludes that it will never close the prison, it cannot acknowledge that because it would revive Guantánamo as America’s image in the Muslim world.

“Guantánamo is a negative symbol, but it is much diminished because we are seen as trying to close it,” the official said. “Closing Guantánamo is good, but fighting to close Guantánamo is O.K. Admitting you failed would be the worst.”

It’s a good thing no one in the “Muslim world” knows about Guantanamo.

Mistakes? I made a few…

“Clearly putting mission accomplished on an aircraft carrier was a mistake, it sent out the wrong message. Obviously some of my rhetoric has been a mistake.”

— George W. Bush

A Campaign Promise Dies: Obama and Military Commissions

“I will reject a legal framework that does not work,”  Obama  said, his words slightly drowned out by the loud applause that  erupted. “There has been only one conviction at Guantanamo. It was for a  guilty plea on material support for terrorism. The sentence was nine  months. There has not been one conviction of a terrorist act. I have  faith in America’s courts, and I have faith in our [Judge Advocate  Generals].”

“As president, I will close Guantanamo, reject the  Military Commissions Act, and adhere to the Geneva Conventions,” he  continued. “Our Constitution and our Uniform Code of Military Justice  provide a framework for dealing with the terrorists … Our Constitution  works. We will again set an example for the world that the law is not  subject to the whims of stubborn rulers, and that justice is not  arbitrary.”

That was three long years ago, when the world was led  to believe that Hope and Change was more than just a campaign slogan.

EXECUTIVE ORDER — REVIEW AND DISPOSITION OF INDIVIDUALS DETAINED AT THE GUANTÁNAMO BAY NAVAL BASE AND CLOSURE OF DETENTION FACILITIES

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, in order to effect the appropriate disposition of individuals currently detained by the Department of Defense at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base (Guantánamo) and promptly to close detention facilities at Guantánamo, consistent with the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and the interests of justice, I hereby order as follows:

…

Sec. 3. Closure of Detention Facilities at Guantánamo. The detention facilities at Guantánamo for individuals covered by this order shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than 1 year from the date of this order. If any individuals covered by this order remain in detention at Guantánamo at the time of closure of those detention facilities, they shall be returned to their home country, released, transferred to a third country, or transferred to another United States detention facility in a manner consistent with law and the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States.

…

BARACK OBAMA

THE WHITE HOUSE,

January 22, 2009.