Naivete
The Administration’s rush to show the public just how naive it is resulted in it’s first official act: a public ceremony showing the new President signing an order to close Guantanamo within a year.
Its not uncommon for a new administration to take a few missteps along the way. Fixing those mistakes is always a lot harder than making them. The person on point for closing Guantanamo was White House counsel Gregory B. Craig according to the Washington Post. Craig, like the rest of President Obama’s political advisors, evidently believed their own BS instead of listening to the national security experts:“Broad consensus?” Craig may have come to that conclusion because both candidates, Obama and McCain, promised to close Guantanamo. Setting a date before you have had time to fully study the issue isn’t embracing consensus. It is showmanship, like an opening statement in the courtroom. Foreign policy should not be directed by lawyers. The President chose to believe Craig’s ideas were better than the national security and foreign policy experts who cautioned against arbitrary timelines. The President seems to prefer initiatives that are fresh, bold, and wrong. The American people expect our President to be smart about things, evaluate policies, and make rational changes. Our current President talks … he talks a lot … and apologizes. He apologizes a lot, always ready to demean and blame the US for any of the world’s ills. It is time he and his team realized they are no longer on the campaign trail, and were elected to govern. Removing Craig as the point person on the closing of Guantanamo is a start. Getting serious about the rest of the duties of governing a nation, and not just making inspiring speeches, is the rest of the job. President Obama needs to show the nation that he is more than a one-trick pony, and can do more than apologize and demean America. It is time for Mr. Obama to become President Obama.I thought there was, in fact, and I may have been wrong, a broad consensus about the importance to our national security objectives to close Guantanamo and how keeping Guantanamo open actually did damage to our national security objectives.
