On his second day in office, President Obama issued an executive order to shutter the Guantanamo Bay detention camp within one year–without any plan for how to dispose of the 241 detainees held there. With the clock ticking, the president is discovering that closing Guantanamo is more easily said than done, especially now that his own party in Congress has deserted him.

Recently, the Senate, including the Democratic leadership and nearly all of its members, refused to grant the president the $80 million he asked for to close the facility, voting 90 to 6 to strip the requested funds from a war-spending bill. In a stunning rebuke, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said “Democrats under no circumstances will move forward without a comprehensive, responsible plan from the president. We will never allow terrorists to be released into the United States.”