Guantánamo Closing Hands Republicans a Wedge Issue

New York Times ^ | May 23, 2009 | David D. Kirkpatrick and David M. Herszenhorn

[reaganaut1]

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.

Talk radio and cable news hosts warned viewers that dangerous terrorists might end up in a neighborhood jail, with Sean Hannity of Fox News even broadcasting an online video from House Republican leaders that juxtaposed the security of the detainee camps with images of [9/11].

[reaganaut1]

The dastardly Republicans are using an issue that Obama handed them with his self-righteousness. It would go away if he could admit his mistake and leave it open.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Maybe ‘Gitmo’ gets to be 0bama’s ‘Willie Horton’ moment? Hope so!

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

Guantánamo Closing Hands Republicans a Wedge Issue
_________________________________________

I hope they give Zero a ‘wedgie’.

[tobyhill]

It will be more of a wedge issue with the Rats when Obama actually shuts it down and puts terrorist on US soil with Constitutional protections.

[MaryFromMichigan]

Was it just me, or did anyone else have to read that headline twice to understand it?

[jessduntno]

HEADLINE: OBAMA HAS NO EXIT STRATEGY!!

[chs68]

What a bunch of hypocrites!

Democrats, with cheerleading provided by The New York Times, used the war in Iraq as a major wedge issue.

Over and over and over again we heard from the Democrats (with cheerleading led by the New York Times) about how terrible the war was, how Bush had "lied", how awful Guantanamo was, and on and one and drearily on.

So NOW the New York Times is "concerned" that the Republicans are "using a wedge issue"??

Sorry, New York Times -- you haven't it straight. This issue was one of Obama's on making -- and you helped. Maybe some of the people currently at Guantanamo could be housed on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Or would the New York Times object -- not in THEIR backyard?

[itsahoot]

Was it just me,

Maybe their linotype ran out of commas?

[Venturer]

Obviously John Mccain is picking on the poor boy that the NY Slimes is in love with.

I suggest they put them in the NY slimes building when they no longer us it because of bankruptcy.

[pnh102]

Fear not.. the idiot wing of the GOP, led by John McCain, will find a way to close Club Gitmo and have all of these terrorists brought safe and sound to a neighborhood near you.

[Iron Munro]

[SuperLuminal]

Which they will, as usual, fumble in some incompetent or cowardly fashion.