Congressional Aides: Obama’s Speech Unlikely To Move Dems Much On Guantanamo
Congressional aides I talked to are saying that Obama’s big speech yesterday, in which he defended his plan to close Guantanamo and house detainees on American soil, is unlikely to move opinion much among Congressional Dems — for now, at least.
The aides provide an interesting perspective on the fluidity of the situation, hinting at the extent of the breach that has opened up between the White House and Congressional Dems on this issue — and the extent of the work that will be required to repair that breach.
“Dems really want to work with him on this, but felt as though their flank was exposed,” is how one senior Democratic leadership aide put it. This aide said that the speech yesterday won’t do much to get Dems on board in the short term, barring “a detailed plan” from the White House on what to do with the detainees that will give cover to members of Congress to reconsider their opposition.
This aide predicts that a Department of Defense authorization bill coming up this summer is the most likely place where the issue will be revisited.
Another Democratic aide said that the burden is on Obama to move public opinion on the issue if he wants members of Congress on board. Members are relieved that the president is finally “out there with his bully pulpit,” this aide says. But she added: “Members will follow public opinion on this.”
Some Congressional aides have blamed the White House for failing to coordinate messaging in advance on the contentious issue, forcing the Dem defections. It’s worth noting, though, that Congressional Dems, by letting Republicans in Congress drive this debate, played into the GOP’s hands and allowed the GOP to drive a wedge between them and the White House, which will only make repairing this breach that much tougher.
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Greg
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Is there some kind of polling that these fools are going by to say that President Obama needs to “move public opinion”? From what I gather the public has spoken and they want GITMO closed. I am just about sure that they are so stuck in the Washington bubble that they really believe people are buying the Republican bullsh*t. Besides that how do these idiots think what they just did and what Harry Reid just said last week helps to change whatever public perception they think people have on the issue when they are essentially reinforcing right wing talking points.
“Some Congressional aides have blamed the White House for failing to coordinate messaging in advance on the contentious issue, ”
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pfft.
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So, the White House should have came down and told Dems to their faces keeping this facility open will endanger our troops more by acting as a recruiting tool. So rather than cowering to Republicans, they should stand behind their party leader rather than displaying a lack of faith in their leader. Reid coming out the way he did damaged Obama imho.
BTW, its a good thing we didn’t have this current group of Democratic COWARDS in the Senate back when the Civil Rights Act came up. I would probably still be sitting in segregated restaurants if it was left up to Harry Reid looking at public opinion polls in 1964.
SG — I totally agree, some Congressional Dems are incapable of looking at actual public opinion on national security questions. The irony is caving just makes them look weaker.
I also don’t now what polls exactly our lovely congress critters are referring to when they speak about moving public opinion before this issue.
First of all, I have not seen any polls that show Americans are against closing Gitmo.
Secondly, are we to the point where our senators are telling us they not only need 60 votes to get any legislation passed, but now also need a super majority of public opinion to even vote in favor of the President’s initiatives to me.
This whole things smells like classical political bluster to me. The Senate is impotent and many Democrats still seem to think it is 2002. Democratic senators don’t look tough wilting against GOP pressure. The GOP is held in disdain by the American public right now, and Democrats look impotent when they cave in to them.
On a different topic, I have been wondering something since Cheney’s speech yesterday. David Gregory asked Cheney if he agreed with Limbaugh that Colin Powell should leave the Republican Party, but he didn’t ask if Cheney agreed with Limbaugh when he said Powell should take John McCain with him. I bring this up because Cheney’s views on waterboarding would in addition to puttinig him at odds with President Obama puts him at odds with John McCain. It also puts him at odds with McCain when he says terrorists didnt recruit new people based on our torturing people at GITMO. So why hasn’t anybody asked Cheney about that? Might it be because they don’t want to point out that Cheney doesn’t even agree with the Republican nominee for President from just last year? Something to think about.
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http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/22/mccain-cheney-torture/
All the Dems have to do is lay out the same simple points that Obama laid out in speech yesterday, arguments that are so obvious that it’s amazing that even the seemingly brain dead (at least on this issue) Dems in Congress couldn’t seem to put them forward themselves without having to wait for the president to make the arguments himself. They are:
a) Only a fool would believe that we would let people we know are threats to this nation free in our country.
b) Most of these detainees will be sent to high security prisons in the US, prisons that already safely hold some of the most dangerous criminals in the US.
c) Our prisons system – especially our federal and military prisons, where most of these folks will end up – is top notch, one of and perhaps the best in the world.
d) We’ve held Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the first WTC bombing and one of the most ruthless and cunning terrorists in modern history – in the Colorado Supermax for over 10 years. He’s there with the Unabomber, Eric Rudolph, and Terry Nichols, among many other highly dangerous prionsers. The risk of any of these people escaping from that facility is virtually zero. And these people have almost no contact with other inmates, meaning they aren’t able to “convert” fellow prisoners into terrorists.
It’s simple and it was hanging out there well before Obama made his speech yesterday. If we’re so afraid of housing dangerous detainees in our nations prisons, perhaps we should ship the entire populations of all of our high security prisons down to Gitmo? Now think about how ridiculous that sounds.
Correction, it was John King who asked Cheney about Limbaugh and Powell.
“Members will follow public opinion on this.”
Isn’t that just the problem, in a nutshell. We elect these folks to lead, when they know how to do nothing but follow.
Obama made a good case that Bush was wrong for establishing Guantanamo in the first place to avoid the reach of law, and for abusing prisoners there in years past.
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But he did not really make a strong case for closing the prison camp today, after the courts have defeated the denial of habeas rights during the Bush era and the abusive interrogation has been discontinued.
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(Ironically, if we had a blank slate without Bush’s negative legacy, Guantanamo might be a candidate for a detention center just for reasons of physical security.)
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The case for closure rests largely on Gitmo as a symbol of that past misconduct. As such, it remains a propaganda icon to strengthen our enemies and a barrier between us and our allies. That case has been recognized by Robert Gates, John McCain and even Condoleezza Rice. This is not something we should do to be nice to the detainees. It is something we should do because the U.S. national interest requires it.
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The flaw of Obama’s position is the lack of a concrete plan for where the detainees would be housed stateside.
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Once such a plan is outlined, it will be interesting to see if McCain — who stated unequivocally during the 2008 campaign that as president he would close the Guantanamo camps and transfer the prisoners to Fort Leavenworth — would rise to a level of statesmanship and help lead a bipartisan effort to do the right thing.
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The NIMBY whiners should be reminded that we are at war. They should suck it up and make sacrifices.
Pres Obama thought Congress was set up to provide checks and balances to the executive. Unfortunately our Congresscritters are so busy collecting checks to improve their campaign balances that they have forgotten their original task.
One might hope these aides would comprehend that their boss’ electoral chances (not to mention their own paychecks) will be dependent upon Obama’s success likely more than on any other single factor. Not to mention what is actually good for the nation.
This is complete wild speculation by myself but I see this torture debate like this.
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The reason Obama wants to say we don’t believe in torture and leave it at that is because the memo’s Cheney is speaking of, have information in them that will be hard to counter, no matter how against our values the act of torture is. How will someone be able to speak out against waterboarding when evidence suggests it did in result in information. Sure, you could try and make the argument we could have obtained this information in other ways but the fact of the matter is we obtained it and because of it, possibly thousands of Americans are alive. Yeah, it’s a piece of **** argument but it would be one hell of an argument to try and win and most likely would never be resolved. Not only would it be a difficult argument to win in honest open debate, it would be difficult debate to win with how the MSM operates. It’s apparent news organizations don’t give a damn about the possibility that refusing to torture through waterboarding is not only taking the moral high ground, its also the legal thing to do. Their only goal is to even out the fight and give whoever the underdog is the voice to even the playing field in the argument.
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Now, with the left making noise and some in Congress reacting to this noise by suggesting truth commissions, this is continuing to stay in the forefront.
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It’s all frustrating as hell.
The senate Dems don’t have time to moved my Obama’s passionate, strong, brave and right on the money speech because they are too busy crapping in diapers over a potential 30 second attack ad come next election. These cowards haven’t changed or grow a set a balls
I hate these petulant crybabies almost as much as the bedwetting Republicans. You’d think these dumbasses would be able to fashion an effective media message without waiting around for someone else to do it. Do these whiny “staffers” include Jim Manley? Because he’s about the most ineffective, incompetent “staffer” on the Hill. Harry Reid’s press guy. And Brendan Daly? What the hell is HE doing? Pelosi just lost 7 points in approval over his profound incompetence. Just asinine.
Gitmo’s going to be around for a while. Unless the house & senate grow a pair – and it sure isn’t looking that way.
Funny just how spineless they are when it actually comes to doing something. They did the same thing under Bush – complain about Iraq – yet they continued to fund it. Over and over and over again!
Pathetic.
The majority Democrat Congress continues to let the minority Republicans change and dominate the the message as they have done the past two weeks like the past four years. The republican message has echoed around MSN at ever increasing volume a reminder that Republicans are masterful obstructionists and brilliant at manipulating the news outlets and misleading the public.
The Democratic Congress is once again is unable to intervene in the republican strategy to get them divided among themselves, resulting in a loss of focus an real issues. Obama is on their side. Pelosi is on their side. They must wake from the long eight year nap, do their homework and get things moving forward. There are major issues that need full attention all day every day. These skirmishes are distractions. If Obama fails, we all fail.