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Aug 02
2009
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This past month the President showed us another talent of his, something he's really quite good at - distraction. Magicians refer to distraction as, "misdirecting the audience's attention to perform your secret moves without notice." While sitting down with Sgt. Crowley, Professor Gates and VP Biden, BO tried his best to focus our attention off the major issues of the day. Whether it be ObamaCare, a 2nd Stimulus Bill, canceling missile defense development while North Korea launches missiles, offering for the umpteenth time negotiate with Al-Qaeda or anything else on his far-left agenda, he's done his best to have us look this way while he's doing something else that way.
Fortunately, some news outlets are calling him out on the above issues - primarily Fox News and, in fairness, to some extent, CNN and the Washington Post. While all of the above noted issues are important, I haven't seen much coverage, anywhere, of another issue that seems to have fallen off the radar - the closing of Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. On January 22, 2009 BO signed an Executive Order to close Guantanamo within one year.
On May 22, 2009, the US Senate effectively halted the President's plan by voting to keep the facility open, indefinitely, and refusing to fund the transfer of any prisoners to the US mainland until the Administration produced a "coherent plan for closing the prison." Be honest - do you remember hearing about this on any major news outlet? This was a MAJOR defeat for the President. Of course, at the time of the vote, the Senate expected the so called Terror Policy Report within a month.
Last week the Administration quietly announced it had not yet completed the plan even though a six-month self-imposed deadline had come and passed. Administration officials have stated the President granted a six-month extension. This means the report on how to detain, interrogate and transfer to American or foreign soil suspected terrorists isn't even due, let alone to be implemented, AFTER the deadline BO set Guantanamo's closure.
This should be major news, but it's not "sexy" compared to the outrage over ObamaCare or the ridiculousness of the staged beer event. A cornerstone of The Apologizer's campaign was the closing of Guantanamo Bay, now, even as President with a Democratic majority in Congress, he can't accomplish it. We should all be grateful, Obama has stumbled yet again and we may be a lot safer for it.
Sources:
AP sources: Gov't delays terror policy reports
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090721/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_guantanamo
"Senate Nixes Obama's Guantanamo Plan" http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/05/20/obama-guantanamo.html
