Adam Serwer says that in the wake of the Obama administration’s missteps, it’s easy to forget just how bipartisan an issue closing Gitmo once was.
Next week marks the second anniversary of President Barack Obama’s executive order closing the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay — but Gitmo’s closure has never seemed less likely.
It’s easy to forget just how bipartisan an issue closing Gitmo once was. Sure, Obama supported closure, but so did Sen. John McCain and America’s most recognizable military leader, Gen. David Petraeus. In 2006, President George W. Bush, reeling from his mishandling of two wars and public and international outcry over his national-security policies, said he thought the prison should be closed. He went as far as to say that some of the “cold-blooded killers” held there needed to be “tried in U.S. courts.”
