This is one of those subjects like global warming that’s so caked over with demagoguery that it’s hard to remember what the actual issues look like underneath. Between the constant screeching about what The World thinks of us, the ever expanding definition of “torture,” and the predictability of reactions to the prisoners’ publicity stunts, the debate is so poisoned with bad faith that it’s not even worth writing about. So here’s your blockquote. Feel free to hash it out in the comments.

I like to think it was the poems that moved him.

The Bush administration is nearing a decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and move the terror suspects there to military prisons elsewhere, The Associated Press has learned.

President Bush’s national security and legal advisers are expected to discuss the move at the White House on Friday and, for the first time, it appears a consensus is developing, senior administration officials said Thursday.

The advisers will consider a new proposal to shut the center and transfer detainees to one or more Defense Department facilities, including the maximum security military prison at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, where they could face trial, said the officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing internal deliberations.

Minor postscript to the story via K-Lo at the Corner: It’s a load of crap. Or maybe Bush simply doesn’t want people to know right now lest it complicate the rocket ride to glory he’s taking on the Starship Amnesty.