In recent days, mounting public pressure and bipartisan political opposition have forced the administration to reassess the closing of the Guantanamo facility and the relocation of terrorist detainees. Already the White House has failed to meet a self-imposed one-year deadline, and administration officials are signaling that New York City, the venue originally chosen for criminal trials for the terrorists, might not be the best option after all.
In fact, it is becoming increasingly apparent that decisions made by the administration in response to the thorough review ordered last year are ill-conceived and hastily announced. If a thorough review was conducted and every alternative was considered, as Attorney General Holder testified, it is difficult to understand why the administration's policy is now subject to internal reassessment.
Either the administration's November decision was based on a comprehensive assessment of all "legal, logistical and security issues," or it rested on a half-baked analysis that failed to consider the full consequence of its decisions regarding the disposition of terrorist detainees. Either the Justice Department was willing to make a decision that the attorney general labeled "controversial" because it was the best option, or Americans are now witnessing an administration that makes national security decisions with a wet finger planted firmly in the political wind.
Of course, there is another possibility. It may be that the Justice Department never actually conducted the mandated assessment, but has undertaken a yearlong charade designed to distract Americans from the fact that the president's team is more concerned about appeasing the extreme left in his own party and winning a global public relations battle than protecting the American homeland.
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