GOP Leaders To Escalate National Security Attacks On Obama
I’m told reliably that GOP Congressional leaders are planning to increase their national security attacks on Obama, particularly focusing on the question of what to do with detainees at Guantanamo Bay after the facility is closed.
Source confirm that House Republicans are planning to introduce some sort of legislation on the Guantanamo issue — I haven’t yet nailed down the details — which would focus more public attention on the GOP leadership’s national security criticism.
House GOP leader John Boehner and his Senate counterpart, Mitch McConnell, recently embarked on a new effort to revive national security as an issue and sow doubts about Obama’s ability to keep us safe. Boehner’s office released a video featuring 9/11 imagery that asks: “Do you feel safer?”
The strategy has some Republicans worried, however. GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio told me that reprising national security attacks risks making the GOP look “out of touch and irrelevant.”
But Congressional Democrats have now stripped funding for Guantanamo’s closing from a spending bill, and McConnell and Boehner are preparing to up the ante on the issue on both the rhetorical and legislative fronts.
More when I know it.
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Yes. I felt a lot safer as soon as they started securing the cockpit doors.
Here is the deal, Democrats have an opportunity here and they are squandering it. What they need to do is stand up and say that they would welcome the opportunity to house some of the detainees in their state. They should also point out that those who wouldn’t be similarly enthusiastic about helping to maintain our national security are cowards. This NIMBY bullsh*t is exactly the chance Dems have been waiting for for years to be able to wrest the mantle of “tough on crime” and “strong on national security” from the GOP. I can’t for the life of me understand why they are scared to take Republican on with this issue. The detainees will be in supermax prisons. They don’t have any frikkin superpowers to be able to break out. And by not confronting the GOP on this and in some cases actually agreeing with them that it would be dangerous to house detainees on US soild they are not only legitimizing what is at its core a nonsensical viewpoint, they are also opening themselves up to charges of being weak on defense of the homeland. F*ck it, if the Republicans are going to use the issue anyway its time to make them pay for being the bedwetting pansies that they really are. I keep waiting for someone to stand up and say “Send them to us, we know just how to handle them” from ANYBODY in the Dem caucus but it seems like they are just going to allow Republicans to frame this issue then turn around and use it as a platform to run against them next year. I can’t tell you how stupid that is and how much it frustrates me. We have the WTC bombers in jail in Colorado for pete’s sake.
Montana already offered. Close Gitmo, move them stateside, get them habeous corpus & get the trials going. What is the hold up?
Gitmo should’ve been closed two months ago.
Bob
.
A city in Montana offered but I believe the Senators from Montana both pooh poohed that offer. What it boils down to is Democrats are scared that if they offer to take the detainees the Republicans will say they endangered their constituents. But what they seem to fail to grasp is that either way Republicans are going to use it against them. So why not take control of the situation and then make them look like the cowards? Thats what I am asking.
The prisoners are on a military base now.
Move them state side to a military base.
Local GoOPers protest them as NIMBY, close that military base permanently and move them to another one.
Win win. Soon they will beg to have them.
“Do you feel safer?”
Yes, yes I do.
Ft. Wainwright would work.
I say use that newly democratic Senator from PA – and put them at Ft. Indian Town Gap.
what im not understanding is how are we less safe when Barack is increasing funding for defense, increasing troop presence in afghanistan, and all the attacks on our country in the last 8 years happened under a republican dominated house senate and presidency. It makes no sense to me, why they want to push that line of thought
which attacks are you talking about Osmond?
isn’t this dovetailing with the oped by mcCain today about military tribunals?
Seems to me that this is not really intended to move public opinion in the short term, but is more of a long-shot bet that they can prime the public to blame Obama and his detention policies for any terrorist attack that might subsequently occur. Of course, that puts the GOP in the uncomfortable position of hoping for a terrorist attack to prove them right, but hey, no one ever said the psychology of opposition was simple.