The Reid Report: Democrats, particularly liberal activists, will not want to hear this. But President Obama cannot close the Bush-created prison at Guantanamo Bay, or try the remaining detainees still stuck in that island gulag, on his own. Like Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act, Gitmo is a creature of Congress, and only Congress can kill it.
Currently riling the vocal left (and let’s face it, what doesn’t…) is the decision by Attorney General Eric Holder to stop fighting to get Khalid Sheikh Muhammad tried in a Manhattan court. Holder relented after more than two years of fighting not just Republicans .. but also Democrats, in Congress and in New York and Virginia.
….But far from rolling over and playing dead on KSM, as many on the vocal left have portrayed them, the Obama administration, and specifically Attorney General Holder, pushed back hard against the obstructions Congress has thrown in front of them (see here for details)
… – President Obama came into office in January 2009, and two days after his inauguration, he signs his first executive order, calling for the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay within one year.
– Less than five months later, Congress – controlled by Democrats – votes overwhelmingly to neutralize that executive order, and to keep Gitmo open, by choking off the funds needed to enact the executive order by building new facilities, seeking deportations, etc. The vote in the Senate was 90 to 6.
– In November 2009, the Obama administration tried another tack: they plan to move 100 remaining Gitmo detainees (not including KSM and other 9/11 direct suspects) to an all-but abandoned, state-of-the-art prison in Illinois. The rural town wanted the deal, and the jobs that would come with it. Again, the deal was blocked, and demogogued, by Congressional Republicans…
….To be clear: Barack Obama vowed to close Gitmo, and took concrete steps to try and do so. But he could not have anticipated the obstruction that would come from his own side in Congress…
Is there a way that the president can vault over Congress and bring KSM to trial in New York? The answer is no; not without directly violating numerous edicts passed by Congress (which back in the Bush days, liberals would have considered impeachable.) And the idea that “Bush did it” is more of the liberal fiction that George W. Bush routinely defied Congress, when in fact, Congress colluded with him on national security policy every step of the way.
Full brilliant post here
Thank you Ladyhawke 😉
The Obama Diary 
Thank you so much for this article. I have come to the realization that we will have to do as much debunking of myths coming from the Left as from the Right during this election. I appreciate all the material I can get.
With the great American freak out and eventual punk out of 2010/2011, this decision is no surprise. I mean you have some states passing bans on Sharia laws, pastors burning Korans, people protesting mosques being built et al, and let us not forget some of our pathetic congress members. What a end to a pathetic scene.
You think we’ll hear any of this from the corporate news media? Don’t hold your breath. Rachel Maddow so ticked me off last night. She bloody well knows better, yet she used her platform to wallow in the sanctimonious hyperbole of the liberal elites who’ll never be happy with anything our President does and the rightwing politics of misinformation and omission.
Shame on you, Rachel! Shame on YOU!
Sure glad I missed that. She is sanctimonious. I think her head has swelled a lot with her fame. “MY WAY, OR NO WAY” Stuff a sock in your mouth rachel.
I am still trying to figure out why these msnbc idiots do not focus the the republicans. Instead, Obama is the target of their vile. Quite disgusting actually.
Thank you so much for this post, last night I had to turn off the tv box after hearing Ms. Maddow accuse the President of betraying his base again by not closing Gitmo. I asked her why she would make such a statement when it was public knowledge that congress was doing everything they could to block him including defunding any attempts to move prisoners to nyc for trial.
I say we hold her accountable, Sonjia. I’m sick of these journalists/pundits abdicating their responsibility of reporting the truth – in its entirety – without bias. Sick of it.
Please, take a few mins and let Rachel Maddow know how you feel about her reporting on this development last night. Her twitter account is @maddow. She’s also got a blog here: http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/04/04/6407107-noted-without-comment where you can leave comments or tweet her blog account @maddowblog.
She’s supposed to be the most trusted woman in news. She earned that distinction fair and square, however, she must work to retain our trust. She’ll lose mine if she doesn’t tell the truth about what’s happened with GITMO and detainee trials.
I had emailed her but the comment section is a lot more effective. I just wrote my message on her blog’s comment. I really would like for the media to live up to their best reporting of the truth, to investigate and seek out those who can verify the truth before they present their issue on the tv. I know I need to tweet, my daughter said that I did not have to have a cell phone to tweet. When I retired I got rid of the cell phone and pager it was part of my emancipation.
Hachiko I am glad you left the crazy Rick Scott’s state you are too smart for them.
🙂 I’m glad I left too, Sonjia.
I also commented. Please let’s work together to participate in this attempt to let Rachel know we do not approve of her belitting the president. I think she is feeding the frustrati. Throwing them some red meat. She has to keep her rating up after all.
As HACHIKO said, let’s hold her accountable. Hachiko, thank you for the link. I feel better now.
You’re welcome, Dorothy.
I love getting these posts each day. I wish you would change one thing. Please stop referring to the liberal left in such a negative way. I would love to forward these postings on, but have had several complaints about the negative language. I truly think if the name calling (which I personally agree with) were left out, more people would read the posts. They would then think, instead of take offense. Just my thoughts. I repeat, I love the posts. Thanks
Cindy, when the “liberal left” stop with their outright disrespect and undermining of President Obama, we can consider their “hurt feelings”!!!
Until that time, it’s push-back all the way!!!
I wrote Maddow and told her exactly what I think. She talked of how the Republicans fear their base, but the Democrats do not. I told her that the Republicans respect their President, they are not always attacking a Republican President like certain members of the Democratic base is always attacking the Democratic President, specially this President. The people over there at MSNBC have really turn me off, I do not watch MSNBC like I used too. And it’s because of people like Rachel, Ed, Morning Joe.
I wish I could copy this and send it to people.
Democrats screwed this up plain and simple, they passed this bill and the President signed it. The truth is this is all political, America has tried terrorist before and convicted them at a high rate whats different about KSM? But guess the President just has to take the loss and move on to the next item on the check list.
If there are any lawyers here, I have a question, can he use executive privilege ala W.Bush?
Shortly after he was sworn in President Obama issued an executive order closing Gitmo, but the democrats in Congress joined with the republicans to block the legislation which would have provided the funding to close the facility. Last month, the republicans in the House introduced and passed a bill that cut off funding that would have allowed the detainees to be brought to the mainland and tried in civilian courts. This left the president and AG Holder with the only option they had left: trying the detainees at Gitmo in military tribunals. The problem that some are having now is that the president and AG Holder have found a way to work toward eventually closing Gitmo. Their opponents were hoping that if they threw enough roadblocks in their path, they’d give up on closing the facility. They didn’t, and now these opponents are engaged in making it seem as if it is a failed campaign promise on the part of the president. IMO, the real blame lies with Fox and rw media who stoked fear about trying detainees in civilian courts, the MSM that didn’t tell Americans that GWB tried over 300 detainees in civilian trials without incident when he was POTUS, and the democrats in Congress who failed to support the president when they know Gitmo is a major contributor to many of our problems in dealing with nations where Islam is the predominant religion.
Rachel Maddow is not ideologically aligned with President Obama….she is more liberal, and has openly said so. She feels it is the PL’s responsibility to exert political pressure from the left. That’s fine, and valuable in persuading public perception and opinion. Rachel is smart, and good at her job, but I think at times she gets a little big for her britches. I certainly don’t agree with scapegoating the President as a means to her ends. When at times, she resorts to sanctimony, and self-aggrandizement of the PL’s scope and influence she loses me.
“She feels it is the PL’s responsibility to exert political pressure from the left.”
No Sue, Rachel and her fellow so-called “liberals” are doing far worse harm with their abuse and the insults they heap upon this President!!! They “exert no pressure” whatsoever, they only do irreversible damage!!! And I think that is the real intent of some of them!!!
They add no value to the conversation and only serve to wreak the very same havoc and grievious harm that brought us Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan etc.
With the exception of Randi Rhodes who I think really, really gets it, I actually loathe and despise the whole bunch of “liberal” talksters as much as I hate Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck etc!!! These days I even think (shockingly) that a few of the right wing talksters show this President more respect than the idiots on the left!!! I am so sick of them!!!
Today I heard this woman, another so-called “liberal progressive” blogger, on the Thom Hartman show gushing about Grover Norquist and how she has a soft spot for Norquist because he had fought for DADT!!! Really!!!
Even Thom was visibly shocked at this admission and cautioned the woman about snakes like Norquist and how he was good at snookering the unsuspecting and not a common working man’s friend!!!
You could tell that that moment with that “progressive” blogger gave Thom Hartmann pause!!! A light bulb moment. He understood at that moment that many of these so-called progressives are not really and are all about just single causes that solely and directly benefit them!!! These are mostly not true progressives who care for the general population in the least!!!
I hope many more of these “progressives” slip up and expose their true leanings and lack of true liberal/progressive agenda!!! Trolls and hucksters all of them!!!