This is what you call Republicans winning the argument on national security:
Support for closing the facility has dropped 12 points over the past 14 months, a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey indicates.
Shortly before Obama's inauguration, 51 percent of Americans said they thought the facility in Cuba should be closed. Now that number is down to 39 percent, and six in ten believe the United States should continue to operate Guantanamo.
I've been saying this for a while, but the fact that Republicans have failed to dent Obama's personal approval ratings on the issue of national security doesn't mean they're not winning the larger argument about national security policy. Guantanamo Bay is a disaster, a national security liability that is a boon for terrorists and an embarrassment to the United States. Everyone from George W. Bush to Gen. David Petraeus has said it should be closed, and yet over the past 14 months Republicans have frightened the American people into believing the institution should remain open.
Obama's approval ratings on national security indicate the degree to which they like him and find Republicans unappealing. They do not mean they share his stated views on national security policy. And as long as Democrats insist on ceding these arguments to Republicans even when they are horribly, demonstrably wrong, they will find themselves unable to act responsibly in the national interest. It does not matter what position Democrats take -- even if they find themselves taking the same ones as Republicans, the GOP will move to the right in order to gain political advantage, no matter how reckless or damaging it might be to the country as a whole.
-- A. Serwer
