GOP Pegs Hopes to Gitmo

[babylonsister]

Guantánamo Closing Hands Republicans a Wedge Issue

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
Published: May 23, 2009


WASHINGTON — If there was one thing both presidential candidates agreed on last fall, it was the need to close the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

But almost as soon as President Obama took office and ordered the camp shuttered within a year, Congressional Republicans — including his former opponent, Senator John McCain of Arizona — saw a singular political opportunity.

“Where are we going to send them?” Mr. McCain said in an interview on Fox News, just days after the inauguration. “That decision I would have made before I’d announced the closure.” Referring to the not-in-my-back-yard uproar over the proposed nuclear waste site in Nevada, he added: “You think Yucca Mountain is a Nimby problem? Wait until you see this one.”

Now the consensus from the campaign trail has dissolved, leaving Congressional Democrats and Republicans alike at odds with the White House. The conflagration has been fanned by the determined focus of Republican leaders, fed by the alarms of talk-show populists and aided by the miscalculation of a new president who set a date for a closing without announcing a detailed plan for the inmates. The debate now threatens to make it much harder for Mr. Obama to keep his campaign promise.

Armed with polling data that show a narrow majority of support for keeping the prison open and deep fear about the detainees, Republicans in Congress started laying plans even before the inauguration to make the debate over Guantánamo Bay a question of local community safety instead of one about national character and principles.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/us/politics/24gitmo.html?ref=todayspaper

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

1. Their position is that the ENTIRE country is incapable of securely

confining someone.

Once again, what they are doing is creating a myth that the terrorists are mega scary really bad people who have super powers that enable them to overcome entire prison structures and that every city and town and governor and mayor in the country must cower for fear of these supermen. HOW INSULTING!!!!

[babylonsister]

2. And Dems fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

So much for the majority, or thinking elected officials.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

5. Do the Europeans manage to imprison terrorists?

God! Sometimes I think we must be such a laughing stock around the world. The weenie Americans so afraid of their own shadows and so mistrusting of their own competence that they can't fulfill a basic security need in their own country.

[TheCowsCameHome]

7. ...pretty much as anticipated.

Imagine, just a handful of locked-up detainees making the nation tremble in fear.

Pathetic.

[spanone]

3. the torture party....so be it

[madrchsod]

4. it is not about a fair and just society,

it is about the next election cycle.


we are held hostage by our own cowardice

[KharmaTrain]

6. It's All Smoke & Mirrors...Pure Politics...

Consider the GOOP as a company gone bust. The first thing they need to do is stop their own bleeding...hold the base and hope that President Obama screws up. That's been their strategy from day one...and the best way to do that is to oppose and obstruct. It doesn't matter what it is or why, unity and "party disicpline" are more important than governing (the usual GOOP mindset) and the more they obstruct, the more money they can raise from special interests and their usual suspects. So our healthcare system can go to hell cause a Goober Graham or Pete Sessions knows they'll get checks in the mail and in their pockets for playing party line.

Consider that all of the "principals" have been totally rejected by the electorate and the chances for retaking the House & Senate are already a long shot for them...seems like the only "strategery" they have now is to attack...the best defense being a strong offense. So if they don't have any real power to move the country forward, then all they will care about is catering to their money bags and 'the base'.

To the rushpublicans, 75% of the country no longer exists or is relevant.

Cheers...

[rurallib]

8. Gop ties hope to terrorists attacks, massively failed economy and

scaring the shit out of people on health care. That is what they are cheering for. Really.
Sounds almost treasonous to me.
They sure would love them some rapture also.