Matt Zeitlin

The Congressional GOP, bereft of real policy ideas or the ability to do anything, has been reduced to juvenile mocking of Democratic ideas. I thought the most absurd of these was the bizarre claim that moving a few hundred Guantanamo detainees to American facilities constituted any type of threat to anyone. If they were all of the sudden so skeptical of the American prison system’s ability to keep dangerous people on lock and key, why are they OK with Supermax in Florence or with keeping convicted terrorists in federal prison (or detaining Jose Padilla in a brig in Charleston)? But trying to rationally answer such absurd claims was silly. This was the GOP using any possible argument to reestablishment themselves as  the jingoistic, national security party.

So what the fuck are the Congressional Democrats doing not providing the $80 million necessary to close down Gitmo and deal with the detainees? Do they think that their political fortunes will be improved by being bitch slapped by the GOP? The Republicans were making a stand that was nonsensical, even by their standards. I doubt anyone besides Michelle Bachmann actually thought American would be put at risk by the presence of these detainees. But, instead of being laughed at, the Republicans have learned they can bully the Democrats by saying whatever ridiculous nonsense that can be plausibly connected to being mean to terrorists.