Obama renewing his push to close Guantanamo Bay detention center is a radical left position, unlikely to help his numbers recover.
In response to a Wall Street Journal reported claiming President Obama is “drafting options” to close Guantanamo Bay, House Speaker John Boehner is up-in-arms. On Friday, Boehner called the plan “dangerous,” and stated that overriding Congress on Guantanamo is another example of the administration’s “legacy of lawlessness.”
Boehner said that closing the Guantanamo Bay detention center is opposed by an “overwhelming majority of Americans” and, according to PPD’s analysis, he’s absolutely correct.
“The closing of Guantanamo Bay remains a radical left position in America,” says PPD’s senior political analyst, Rich Baris. The anti-Guantanamo crowd is loud, but they have been in the minority since Obama first made the issue a central campaign promise in 2008. Even a majority of Democrats oppose that idea.”
A June 13 Gallup poll found just 29 percent of Americans support closing the terrorist detention camp and moving its prisoners to U.S. prisons, while 66 percent oppose doing so. Ideology, interestingly enough, is the most predictive factor when determining a respondent’s answer, not party. Similarly, a Rasmussen Reports survey conducted before the Obama administration traded Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for the now-infamous Taliban Five, found that just 27 percent of likely voters say the prison in Cuba should be closed.
“For many years now, we’ve always looked at options to close Guantanamo Bay,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters Friday. “For now, our position is clear that we’re seeking support from Congress to lift those restrictions.”
The Wall Street Journal story, however, didn’t just only also claim that Obama was looking “at options,” but also that he is “unwavering in his commitment” to closing the detention center. Further, Boehner said the White House is not looking into working with Congress, at all, and that majorities in both the House and Senate have passed restrictions on the president.
Yet, those restrictions haven’t stopped the president from acting unilaterally and, according to an internal government report, illegally.
A Government Accountability Office investigation concluded that the Obama administration violated the law when it ordered the Pentagon to swap the Taliban Five for Sgt. Bergdahl, a known deserter who was held prisoner in Afghanistan for five years after abandoning his post. The government watchdog agency said the administration’s failure to notify the relevant congressional committees at least 30 days in advance of the exchange was a clear violation of the law.
Under current law, which was passed in a bipartisan fashion, the executive branch is prohibited from releasing Guantanamo Bay detainees without first receiving the aforementioned notice and approval.
A White House official told PPD in June that the Bergdahl sway was an effort by the Obama administration to test the political waters, a blow-back barometer if you will. The blowback was severe, but the president appeared to have abandoned his plan to close Guantanamo Bay for the time being, or at least until after the midterm elections.
Given American public opinion, it’s not hard to see why, though now the question remains whether the voters will hold the president and his party accountable in Nov., which would be the last chance they would have to do so. Republicans are concerned that — with no election left in their way — Democrats will either remain silent or outright supportive of the president on Guantanamo Bay and a host of other issues, such as granting amnesty for illegal immigrants through executive order.
The president recently announced plans to abandon his plan to take executive action on amnesty, though recent reports suggest he is just as committed in that effort as he is in closing the terrorist detention center.
