We’re Not Sending Them to Boss Hogg’s Lock-Up

  • Share
  • Read Later

Obama, in his national security speech this morning, dispensed with one of the stupidest fear-mongering arguments made in the Gitmo debate that Joe has rightly deemed “political nonsense”:

Let me begin by disposing of one argument as plainly as I can:  we are not going to release anyone if it would endanger our national security, nor will we release detainees within the United States who endanger the American people. Where demanded by justice and national security, we will seek to transfer some detainees to the same type of facilities in which we hold all manner of dangerous and violent criminals within our borders – highly secure prisons that ensure the public safety. As we make these decisions, bear in mind the following fact: nobody has ever escaped from one of our federal “supermax” prisons, which hold hundreds of convicted terrorists. As Senator Lindsey Graham said: “The idea that we cannot find a place to securely house 250-plus detainees within the United States is not rational.”

It’s not rational, no. But who needs rationality when there are TERRORISTS COMING TO LIVE AMONG US?

Meanwhile, let’s hear it for my home state Senator Carl Levin, who was one of only six to vote against prohibiting the release of Gitmo prisoners in the U.S. and is now actually offering up Michigan as a future home for the detainees. With every other politician running screaming from the idea of bringing prisoners to their states, I’d say he’s in a pretty good negotiating position to get some hefty financial support for Michigan in return. Way to turn lemons into lemonade, Carl!