Today the US Senate voted 90-6 to block President Obama from transferring prisoners detained at Guantanamo Bay to the United States. As reported in Real Clear Politics, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that closing the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was a "hasty decision" in his daily press briefing with reporters. But it's hard to imagine what Gibbs is talking about being "hasty"- as Obama had campaigned to "close Gitmo" since 2006- and ceaselessly promised to do so throughout the primaries and presidential election.
Of course, his decision to close Gitmo in the early days of his presidency was met with adulation on the political left and earned headlines in newspapers across the world- and was seen as a clear break from Bush-era national security policy. But recently, Obama has broken with liberals over his decision to continue Bush-era military commissions to try Guantanamo Bay prisoners and his decision not to release photographs allegedly depicting U.S. soldiers abusing detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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Clearly, far from a hasty decision, Obama's executive order to close Gitmo was just a calculated propaganda skit to "fulfill" campaign promises and throw a bone to the antiwar left, with zero preparation or plans... and was always unlikely to ever happen. He can now present this "action" as evidence that he was "for" it, but the Senate put the kabosh on it. This was as disingenuous as Obama's "order" for withdrawal from Iraq- the timetable of which was settled-on long ago by George W Bush and Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki.
Obama knew perfectly well that he can't just shut down Gitmo as pledged, and had covered that by stating the January executive order was just "the start of a process". And he announced this right after the Pentagon released info on 60+ ex-Gitmo terrorists having promptly returned to militancy upon release- showing his hollow anti-Gitmo rhetoric to be as ill-advised as his plans to withdraw from Iraq in defeat two years ago.
Maybe the evil Bush and Cheney weren't that far off, after all- eh, Mr President? Remember last year, when you based your entire campaign on opposition to the Bush policies that you are now adopting, one by one?
Stop military tribunals for detainees? Nope, start them back up again.
The troop surge in Iraq "didn't work" according to Obama and Biden, but let's apply that strategy to Afghanistan anyway- what the heck.
Stop wire taps? Uh, no... maybe not.
And the ill-advised pledge on second day in office to close Gitmo... but now, no- better not do that. What ever would we do with these heinous terrorists?
Running the country is not nearly as easy as the previous 43 presidents made it look- as Obama is now finding out. And as was obvious to the less-smitten amongst us, the pollyana gobbledygook he laid on the antiwar left to get elected was never going to work in reality- a fact that Obama likely knew full-well back when he was promising them the moon and the stars.
State Senator Barack Obama used south-side Chicago poor to get elected back then, too- and instead of delivering on his housing promises, he steered government money to his financial godfather and (now) convicted felon Tony Rezko- who provided Obama's constituents crumbling, unheated slums... some of which were actually managed by White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett.
See the pattern? He'll use you, if you let him. But the minute you're no longer politically useful to the ruthless charlatan Obama- he'll treat you like yesterday's garbage. And this is where the antiwar left finds themselves today. Obama is now using all his political capital for his top priority -a radical, leftist domestic agenda- so in issues abroad Obama for the most part is simply looking for no distractions, no drama, and no embarrassments that could drain his power at home. This explains the retention of Gates and other conservative Obama appointments to deal with such matters.
Sometimes it's a real bummer being a hippy-
no respect, man.
