Dems smack Obama for Gitmo fumbles

posted at 2:55 pm on May 8, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
Share on Facebook | printer-friendly

Politico reports that Democrats on Capitol Hill are fuming over Barack Obama’s incompetent handling of the Guantanamo Bay detention issue.  They’re shocked, shocked to find that a man with no executive experience made promises that now look almost impossible to keep, and that have left them twisting in the wind with constituents not thrilled to have al-Qaeda terrorists in the neighborhood:

Now Democrats are ganging up on President Barack Obama’s plans to shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison. Or rather, the president’s lack of planning for how to shutter the prison and how to handle the detainees.

“They say, ‘We’re going to close Guantanamo.’ OK, fine. How are you going to do that? That’s the question,” Rep. Neal Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) told POLITICO Thursday. “They should have had that worked out from the get-go.”

“There’s this vague game plan that now we’re going to leave Guantanamo,” Abercrombie said. “It’s allowed it to become a political football.” …

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who supports the Obama plan, admits that there’s no clear answer yet on Guantanamo: “The issue is, how are we going to close it?”

And House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D-Wis.) has told the White House that “when they have a plan, they’re welcome to come back and talk to us.”

Maybe they should have had a plan before making the promise.  It’s not like they haven’t had time; Obama’s been making that same promise for over two years, as a candidate and then as President.  He had access to intelligence and military briefings, as well as the luxury of hundreds of advisers.

Given the priority Obama gave this in the campaign, Democrats can be forgiven for their anger over Obama’s complete fumble of this issue.  It appears that Obama thought he could simply dump the detainees in other countries and that he’d find our allies more than willing to set terrorists free in their countries.  After getting an almost-complete snub from Europe (France agreed to take one), Obama seems lost.

The most interesting part of this story is the extent to which Democrats are willing to go public in rebuking their President.  Abercrombie almost sounded eager to get his objections on the public record.  Reid and Obey at least don’t mind it.  That tells us that even Democrats realize that Americans don’t want Gitmo detainees in the US, either in prison or released altogether, as in the case of the Uighers.  And that they’re willing to critcize not just the policy but the embarrassing executive performance of Obama makes that message even more powerful.

However, Obama’s their candidate.  For the belated realization that a person’s first executive job shouldn’t be in the Oval Office, Capitol Hill Democrats get the Captain Louis Renault Award:

Blowback

You must be logged in to post a comment.