Obama is suddenly interested in limiting the sweeping presidential powers he spent 8 years expanding

[anon50609448]

@zathras

Obama’s alleged “inability” to close Guantanamo can also be interpreted as an unwillingness to pay the price for the Bush administration’s crimes.The “price” being - if you abduct people from a foreign country and imprison them without trial, you might have to set them free without trial, even if no other country will take them back. If a president, using his executive powers alone, can order people imprisoned and tortured, then the next president can order them set free on US soil. Obama did not want to pay that price for his predecessor’s crimes, so he did not want to close Guantanamo.

I think this is a fair interpretation. I just have a hard time blaming Obama for this when I’m sitting in a nation that voted in a government that steadfastly refused to take our own citizen back (despite the fact that we were obligated to do so under our own and international law). So I don’t disagree with you, I think Obama could have had it closed if that was his top priority and he was willing to pay the price, I just feel that since Canada was adding substantially to that price, I’m living in a glass house on the issue.