Obama promised to close Gitmo as soon as he took office. Once he realized the extent to which the inmates were involved with terror organizations, he realized that it wouldn't be feasible--especially since many turn up back with terror group upon release.
So what to do? He couldn't sell out his base and he couldn't not take some action. So he decided to leak a story about how the files were in "disarray" and it would take some doing to pull everything together, thus buying time and breathing space. In other words; blame Bush. The WaPo dutifully took up the meme and this morning published the following:
President Obama's plans to expeditiously determine the fates of about 245 terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and quickly close the military prison there were set back last week when incoming legal and national security officials -- barred until the inauguration from examining classified material on the detainees -- discovered that there were no comprehensive case files on many of them.Easy enough with a compliant media; just find several "Bush administration officials" who may want to remain in Washington to agree and voila, you have an excuse for Obama not taking immediate action.
Instead, they found that information on individual prisoners is "scattered throughout the executive branch," a senior administration official said. The executive order Obama signed Thursday orders the prison closed within one year, and a Cabinet-level panel named to review each case separately will have to spend its initial weeks and perhaps months scouring the corners of the federal government in search of relevant material.
Note they included that some officials dispute that but most people read the headline and the lede and that's that.
The Blame Bush scenario will most-likely play out for at least six-months but probably more like a year or more. It's an easy way for a man who has never taken a stand to blame his predecessor who always made a decision and stuck by it. Plus, Obama knows damn well that Bush will not be like Clinton or Carter who broke the presidential tradition of not criticizing their successors or subsequent presidents.
It's a brilliant strategy even if it is underhanded, cowardly and shameless. Truman said the "buck stops here" while the new Obama credo is "blame Bush for all the bad". About what most of us on the right expected.
Jules Crittenden has more.
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Rather you love him or hate him Bush has to be the easiest president in history to make fun of. There has been an outpouring of art work done in relation to George Bush based on a wide variety of issues. I compiled the funniest images of Former president Bush from artists around the world at www.sunflowerpipes.com click the, "Best of Bush" tab. There are some truly inspired funny animations there there is even one with him smoking a glass water pipe. In the end how would you define Bush's presidency, comedy or tragedy, I mean if you had to pick one:)
Sunflower Pipes
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