Our New President is finding that making campaign promises to a war-weary public is easier than actually safeguarding the nation from attack.
His executive order this week to close the terrorist detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has drawn the huzzahs of the fuzzy Left.
"Hooray! What a way to start the new administration!" exults Ed Garvey.
Close the facility at Guantanamo Bay… (Senator) Feingold is right to say that is not enough, The Capital Times clucked.
But where to move its 245 detainees? The New York Times on Saturday asked, "Is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed coming to a prison near you?" The Sheikh being the mastermind of 9/11.
The N.Y. Times noted that: "None of the Democrats who on Thursday hailed the closing of the detention camp were stepping forward to offer prisons in their districts or states to receive the prisoners."
CNN is already reporting that "Security experts are questioning information released by the Pentagon last week, saying 61 former detainees from its detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, may have returned to terrorist activities.
That figure would be about 11 percent of the roughly 520 prisoners that have been released from Guantanamo, which Obama on Thursday ordered be shut down.
Among them is Said Ali al-Shihri, who has resurfaced as a leader of the Yemen branch of al Qaeda.
"Why would we want them here and put them in a general prison population and make our hometowns a target for terrorists?" asks Michigan Republican Rep. Peter Hoekstra, quite reasonably.
May I make a modest proposal? Since these environs are a center of agitation for peace at any price, and since our most enlightened citizens abhor the incarceration of any sentient being, no matter how heinous their activities, the obvious answer is to release them here, in Madison, Wisconsin, on ankle bracelets.
Free them to pee on our parks. Flood County Board hearings to testify in favor of illegal immigration. Let them revivify the ranks of Progressive Dane. Chat with John Nichols at the Ancora coffee shop on King Street. Audit rural sociology classes at the UW.
Call Russ Feingold at 828-1200 and encourage our Senator to offer Madison, Wis., as the site for Guantanamo North.
The shock of emerging from semi-tropical Cuba to weekend high temperatures in the single degrees-Fahrenheit may be enough to make water boarding seem like surfing with the Beach Boys. Prediction: they will sing like little canary birds.
Barack is smarter than the average liberal
Like most Americans, I wish The New President felicity and good fortune. Furthermore, I think Barack Obama is too smart for the Ed Garveys and John Nichols among us. For one thing, the "closing" does not take effect any time soon.
The on-line Politico reports:
There may be less than meets the eye to the executive orders President Obama issued yesterday to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay and prohibit the torture of prisoners in American custody. Those pronouncements may sound dramatic and unequivocal, but experts predict that American policy towards detainees could remain for months or even years pretty close to what it was as President Bush left office.
It notes that Obama ordered a 30-day review of Guantanamo conditions-by the man currently responsible for Guantanamo - holdover U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates. [ Why the Gitmo Policies May Not Change.]
