I can't believe he has to defend closing Gitmo

So today President Obama actually has to go out and defend the closing of Guantanamo Bay. Why? Because the Senate is a stupid place. Fresh off a vote denying money to close the blight on America's reputation, he has to go out and make a case as to why we need to close Gitmo and lay out incredibly obvious plans for how to do so. Why? Because the Senate is a stupid place.

President Barack Obama finds himself in a political box -at home and abroad- on closing the Guantanamo Bay prison, and will be trying Thursday to use a major address on national security to work out of the tight spot.

Obama takes on the explosive topic a day after the Senate, at the behest of majority Democrats, denied his request for $80 million to close the prison. The 90-6 vote followed a similar move last week in the House and underscored widespread apprehension among Obama's Democratic allies in Congress over the issue.

Providing a summary of the speech on condition of anonymity because it has not yet been delivered, this official wrote that the president will work through the cases of the remaining 240 prisoners at Guantanamo by:

-Using federal courts to try those who have violated criminal law;

-Using military commissions to try those charged with violating the rules of war; and

-Transfering detainees to third countries when that is possible and does not pose a security risk.

My God, trying them according to the level of crime they committed in the appropriate court. How could he ever have conceived of such a strategy? Then after this all he has to do is wage a PR battle with the Senate over their various stupid contentions that American prisons cannot simply hold the criminal masterminds in Gitmo, that our corrections officers are unable to undertake the task of properly throwing a Koran in a latrine, or harry Reid flight into incoherence yesterday when he claimed that any transfer of prisoners would result in the release of terrorists into America. I'm not sure I follow the logic on that one either.

After the speech, which actually should be going on now, after Obama lays out a sensible solution to an ad hoc legal clusterfuck and tamps down the temptation to beat Harry Reid with a lead pipe, we'll get to hear a rebuttal of sorts.....from Dick Cheney. I'm being serious. He's giving a speech after the President, where he'll whine and piss and moan about the liberal pussy who is dismantling his chainlink island gulag. Hey GOP, I know you're all scared of the guy and the fact that he knows where all of you live, but when you trot out America's official walking talking personification of it's shame to defend anything, the plan is doomed to fail. Always. I can't believe that you never seem to remember that.