Getoutta Gitmo

Obama's first major policy break that will test my "Obama's honeymoon is already over" theory comes courtesy of Spencer Ackermann via Digby: The closing of Gitmo.

It takes guts to leak their plans to do this right out of the gate since I'm pretty sure the right is going to have a monumental hissy fit over it and it could color his relationship with the military and the CIA. And a "controversial new system of justice" sets off a lot of alarms among us civil liberties slags as well. If we get up in arms, we all know it would mean that Obama is being "dragged to the left" by his dirty hippie base. (I hope it turns out to be something that we can all live with.) But bringing the prisoners to the US and giving them a "fair trial" is an opportunity for the wingnuts to try to stage a "gays in the military" style distraction if it's not handled carefully. With the endless gasbag bloviating about Clinton's allegedly monumental leftwingnuttiness in 1992 I expect they are very well aware of this.

I agree. Obama will be ruthlessly hit on closing Gitmo by the new, ultra-galvanized GOP of the 21st century. They will be looking for anything to rally their decimated base and set the tone that Obama is the most dangerous human being on Earth. The only question is will the Village Idiots go along with it? If the Village portrays the Gitmo closing decision as something Obama cannot or dare not do, then he's in trouble. The GOP wants to make Obama 2008 into Clinton 1992 and doom any chance he has of changing any Bush policy whatsoever.

But it's good to see him lead off with something that A) most of the American people want and B) something that could easily backfire on the GOP if they attack Obama too hard on it.

We'll see how this shapes up.