Now Obama Has to Govern: There may be more difficulties than he realizes in closing Gitmo.

News Type: Opinion — Seeded on Thu Nov 20, 2008 9:31 AM EST

Article Source: Wall Street Journal

politics, obama, gitmo, closing-gitmo-quantanamo-bay, obama-has-to-govern

Presidential transitions can be problematic. The candidate is utterly exhausted. Supporters have unattainable expectations and unrealistic personal hopes. The ease of making campaign pledges has given way to the obstinate process of legislating them. And Barack Obama is the first president-elect since Richard Nixon without executive experience. What are some of his transition challenges so far?

One of Mr. Obama's first decisions was to make Rahm Emanuel his chief of staff. This smart, aggressive Chicago pol may turn out to be a wise pick. But first he must decide what his role is. Will he be the opinionated enforcer who ran the Clinton White House political office? Or will Mr. Emanuel fashion himself into a more traditional chief of staff?

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ShaunV

There is also a thorny local controversy. Should the new president replace U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who prosecuted Mr. Obama's fund-raising patron, Tony Rezko, and is investigating high-profile Democrats?
Mr. Obama was elected a little over two weeks ago. But already it may be dawning on him that making promises is harder than keeping them and setting expectations is easier than meeting them. If he doesn't know this yet, he'll know it on Jan. 20.

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2 votes

#1 - Thu Nov 20, 2008 9:33 AM EST

{"commentId":4152057,"authorDomain":"nw-meyer"}

nw-meyer

Should he? No, and I haven't seen anything to suggest he will. Obama has already laid out the details of his relationship with Rezko and the courts have found any connection between the two lacking in Rezko's legal ranglings. Any involvement now would immediately backfire and make it look as though there is something there worth looking at. Let Fitzgerald do his job, don't make the Cheney/Gonzales mistakes and try to politicize you're JD people, they're having a hard enough time coping with the post 9/11 world as is.

As for Gitmo, no one is thinking it will be easy, but just letting those people sit in purgatory for the last 7 years while the Bush Admin runs around with their collective thumbs up their bums isn't exactely "taking care of business". Shutting down Gitmo, moving the prisoners to someplace like Levenworth, KS and prosecutting them in something that resembles an actual court would be massive steps forward. If we have to create a Hybrid court format then do it, we've had 7 years and this has gone no-where. Anything is better than the idiocy we're looking at now.

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#1.1 - Fri Nov 21, 2008 9:24 AM EST

{"commentId":4152876,"authorDomain":"SVForbes"}

ShaunV

Here is another article you might find interesting.

http://svforbes.newsvine.com/_news/2008/11/21/2135406-al-qaeda-detainees-and-congresss-duty-

{"commentId":4152876,"threadId":"423995","contentId":"2131876","authorDomain":"SVForbes"}

1 vote

#1.2 - Fri Nov 21, 2008 10:20 AM EST

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Now Obama Has to Govern: There may be more difficulties than he realizes in closing Gitmo.

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