Today in Washington D. C. - May 8, 2009

The Senate is in recess until Monday. When it returns it will begin consideration of a bill to place restrictions on credit card companies, H.R. 627. Yesterday, the Senate passed S. 494, a bill to overhaul Pentagon procurement and confirmed Gil Kerlikowske to be drug czar.

The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza wrote yesterday about Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell’s months-long efforts to draw attention to the issue of the administration’s hasty plan to close Guantanamo without a clear alternative. Cillizza noted that yesterday’s speech on the floor “was McConnell’s 11th on the subject of Gitmo since mid-March, a drumbeat that the Kentucky senator has supplemented with an op-ed in the Washington Post on the subject and a series of television appearances and speeches -- including one at the CPAC conference in late February in which McConnell said the Obama administration ‘needs to show it’s more concerned with safety than with symbolism.’”

Cillizza went on to explain, “So much focus on the issue by one of the most powerful men in the party is not an accident but rather a concerted campaign to rally the party’s base behind an idea -- protecting the homeland -- rather than around any one individual. ‘McConnell’s consistent and persistent messaging on Guantanamo has divided Congressional Democrats and put President Obama on defense,’ argued GOP consultant Alex Conant. ‘The Leader’s efforts show that the minority’s message can break through even in the middle of Obama’s honeymoon.’”

It’s clear today that this focus by Republicans in the House and Senate is paying dividends by forcing Democrats to ask serious questions of the Obama administration about their plans for detainees at Guantanamo. Politico reports, “Now Democrats are ganging up on President Barack Obama’s plans to shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison. Or rather, the president’s lack of planning for how to shutter the prison and how to handle the detainees.” Politico points to “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who supports the Obama plan, admits that there’s no clear answer yet on Guantanamo: ‘The issue is, how are we going to close it?’ And House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D-Wis.) has told the White House that ‘when they have a plan, they’re welcome to come back and talk to us.’”

The Washington Post has a story today, “Lawmakers Balk at Holding Guantanamo Detainees in U.S” that notes that “several Democrats have joined Republicans in saying they do not want Guantanamo prisoners in their states or districts. When officials in Hardin, Mont., a city that has a prison with no inmates, said they would accept detainees from Guantanamo Bay, the state’s Democratic senators shot down the idea.” The Post story includes these telling quotes: “‘You cannot close Guantanamo unless you have a plan,’ said Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.). ‘I wouldn’t want them, and I wouldn’t take them,’ said Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.). ‘I don’t see a solution.’”

The result of these questions was that Guantanamo “dominated a congressional debate on war spending Thursday,” according to the AP. And the House Appropriations Committee “refused to give Obama the $50 million he had requested to relocate Guantanamo prisoners and it demanded a detailed plan from the White House by Oct. 1 on the future of the facility.”

We posted the Senate Republican video yesterday. Below is a House Repulican Caucus video that has made it way onto the news network. These videos are keeping a focus on the release and transfer of GITMO detainees and asking Americans to consider where these dangerous detainees will be housed and whether closing the facility will make the U.S. safer.
< As Sen. McConnell said yesterday, “These concerns are rooted in the fact that Americans like the fact that we haven’t been attacked at home since 9/11, and they don’t want the terrorists at Guantanamo back on the battlefield or in their backyards. These concerns are real … and yet all we’ve gotten from the administration on this issue is silence.”

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