Obama is learning slowly, painfully, that his mere utterance of words are not sufficient when you actually have to do the work of governing. Gitmo, he now admits, will not be closed by the January 2010 deadline he had set for closure. Closing Gitmo, he says, is “…just technically hard.” That was kind of the idea, wasn’t it? To put those animals into a type of retention from which they could not easily escape. Neither will he commit to a date by which it will be closed and then tosses the ball to Congress:
"We are on a path and a process where I would anticipate that Guantanamo will be closed next year," he said. "I'm not going to set an exact date because a lot of this is also going to depend on cooperation from Congress."
That passage is full of indecision and gobbledygook and the passing of the buck. First, let me rewrite it without the indecision and gobbledygook: “We will be closing Guantanamo next year.” I am not in favor of closing Gitmo, but I am in favor of a President, even one I do not care for, being decisive and acting like a leader rather than an organizer. He has also shown a troubling tendency to simply toss all the tough actions to Congress for them to wrestle over. He tossed the bailouts to them, he tossed healthcare to them and since Gitmo is not magically closing as he has decreed, he is now ready to toss that to them, too.
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