11/18/09: Obama Fails to Meet His Gitmo Deadline

Jan 22, 2009: What a difference 10 months makes!

The New York Times is reporting that President Obama will fail to meet his own deadline for closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay.

President Obama acknowledged for the first time on Wednesday that his administration would miss a self-imposed deadline to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, by mid-January, admitting the difficulties of following through on one of his first pledges as president.

“Guantánamo, we had a specific deadline that was missed,” Mr. Obama said in an interview with NBC News in Beijing during his weeklong trip to Asia. Mr. Obama said that he now hoped to shut down the detention facility sometime next year, but he did not set a new deadline.

Source: NY Times

Don't forget that the news of Obama's latest failure is coming to light under the following circumstances:

• Obama is in China
  
• The nation is still reeling from Eric Holder's announcement that federal trials will be granted to 9/11 terrorists.
• Obama's deadline for closing Guantanamo Bay is still two months away (January 22, 2010)

It would seem that these factors are not coincidental. With Obama out of the country and the focus still on Holder's press conference, it definitely diffuses any discussion of Guantanamo Bay. The administration began diffusing this issue months ago by leaking hints that Obama may miss his deadline and then blaming it on White House legal counsel Greg Craig, who has since been forced to resign.

By the time January rolls around, the administration will almost surely diffuse any further mention of this issue with a roll of the eyes and a comment by Robert Gibbs to the effect of, "That's old news."

Well it ain't... It's a FAILURE.