‘Zounds (Via Hot Air Headlines):

Stymied by political opposition and focused on competing priorities, the Obama administration has sidelined efforts to close the Guantánamo prison, making it unlikely that President Obama will fulfill his promise to close it before his term ends in 2013.

The “‘zounds” (which, by the way and in case you ever wondered, is short for ‘God’s wounds’) is not quite sardonic, but only because it’s aimed at those poor unfortunates who are relying on the NYT for their news, instead of, well, me. I have been waxing most sarcastic about about this administration’s Gitmo policy, which upon review seems to have fallen out of the Stupid Policy Decision Tree and hit every branch on the way down. It takes skill to find a working methodology that both the Left and the Right can equally despise, but this administration seems to have been up for the challenge when it comes to our detention policy.

But as whines go, this one from the White House is fantastic:

“The president can’t just wave a magic wand to say that Gitmo will be closed,” said a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal thinking on a sensitive issue.

Sure the President can: it’s called an ‘executive order,’ and there’s a whole phalanx of lawyers available to the White House capable of crafting one into something that lets him do precisely that. What the ‘senior administration official’ didn’t care to say was that the President doesn’t dare wave a magic wand to say that Gitmo will be closed – which is another thing entirely.

A considerably more craven thing.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.