President Barack Obama’s November election was supposed to have settled the Guantanamo Bay prison question once and for all.
But anxious congressional politics, public doubts and the persistent ghosts of the Bush administration are creating uncertainty in the face of Obama’s resolve to close the prison and prosecute detainees on U.S. soil.
Far from decided, the issues attending Guantanamo Bay are, as former Vice President Dick Cheney said Thursday, “the great dividing line in our current debate over national security.”
Obama and Cheney highlighted deep divisions over the prison and its satellite issues of torture, detention, secrecy and security in back-to-back speeches at the National Archives and the American Enterprise Institute.
The atmospherics surrounding the counterpoint addresses illustrated the extent to which Guantanamo Bay prison has become a political ringtoss for all sides.
“In my view, what is driving this issue is a quest for popularity in Europe, more than continuing polices that have demonstrably made America safe since 9/11,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
Emerging invocations of Europe — reminiscent of the popular GOP reviling of the French during the 2004 presidential campaign — suggests Republican opponents of Obama’s national security plans have found a unifying message.
“The administration has found that it’s easy to receive applause in Europe for closing Guantanamo, but it’s tricky to come up with an alternative that will serve the interest of justice and America’s national security,” Cheney said.
Obama, who campaigned on promises to reverse key national security policies of the Bush administration, said he deplored how politicized Guantanamo Bay has become.
Democrats in Congress earlier this week sided with Republicans in denying Obama $80 million toward the closing of the prison, demanding a specific plan for doing so, including the relocation of the 240 prisoners housed there.
“I know the politics in Congress will be difficult,” the president said. “These are issues that are fodder for 30-second commercials. You can almost picture the direct mail pieces that emerge from any vote on this issue, designed to frighten the population. I get it.”
After Obama’s speech, which omitted a plan in favor of a broad statement of principles and defense of his policies, some Democrats expressed disappointment at the lack of specifics.
Politicians trying to tack a safe and popular course on the issue aren’t getting much help from public opinion polls.
Democratic pollsters Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner and Democracy Corps found 64 percent approve of the job Obama is doing on national security — six percentage points higher than his job approval rating.
Republican pollster Resurgent Republic National Survey found 58 percent believe holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay helps protect America.
More tellingly perhaps, a survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found only 25 percent said they were closely following last week’s flare-up over Obama’s decision not to release a new round of detainee abuse photos.
