The irony is there - President Obama announced his re-election bid the very same day that Attorney General Holder had to admit that the 9/11 terrorists will be tried at GITMO. You may remember that the very first action performed by newly sworn-in President Obama was to sign an Executive Order to close GITMO. It hasn't happened and it won't happen.
Obama is learning a tough lesson - that of the ease in which a candidate can criticize and proclaim a change in policy does not always translate into reality once that candidate is in office. Reality bites.
A very petulant Attorney General Holder held a press conference Monday to state that though he is smarter than anyone in Congress and his opinion is the smartest one, he will admit that the terrorists will not be brought to New York for trial in federal court. Yes, Holder is blaming Congress for his decision.
"Members of Congress have intervened and imposed restrictions blocking the Administration from bringing any Guantanamo detainees to trial in the United States," he said yesterday, in spinning twist number one. The Justice Department was prepared to make a "powerful case against the 9/11 defendants in federal court," but the politics were causing too many delays on the trial, and it couldn't wait any longer.
For the record, we assume Mr. Holder is referring to the likes of New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer and the Democrats who ran the Congress last year and passed a law that blocked the funding for civilian trials for Guantanamo detainees. Mr. Schumer—no slouch at divining public opinion—was an early and vocal opponent of Mr. Holder's brainstorm to try KSM in downtown Manhattan. And yesterday Mr. Schumer called the decision the "final nail in the coffin of that wrong-headed idea."
As strongly as Team Obama has tried, they have failed to rebuke the policies put in place by the Bush administration after the events of 9/11/01. These policies were voted on and approved on a widely bi-partisan basis and now Holder would like to make Congress the villain. The fact is, he tried to re-invent the wheel - close GITMO, trials in federal courts for the masterminds of 9/11/01, send the detainees currently at GITMO to a prison in Illinois, etc. He failed. President Obama failed, too.
If it were all so easy, it would have been done already. Holder likes to blame Congress for the delays in trials. It was Holder himself who perpetuated delays by his actions to re-structure the trials. Now that the Supreme Court has ruled against his arguments, he is at the end of the line.
Team Obama failed.
No comments:
Post a Comment