Let's remember that the people in Guantanamo generally haven't had trials and no evidence has been shown that they really are terrorists. For all we know they're just random people that the Bushies had kidnapped off the streets.

A Big Tent Party will never have a shortage of jackals. When a Sen. Webb shows courage on crime issues, its a front page story for a reason. The media -- with a few exceptions --doesn't seem to think its worth pointing out that our Super Max Prisons are holding inmates as bad or worse than anyone in Gitmo. Ignorant yahooism is a timeless tactic. [meanwhile, there are communities in this country that are being devastated by the closing of their prisons, the only employer they have].

Money or not, I don't see how Obama can wriggle out of a firm commitment to close Gitmo. McCain said he wants to see the plan first. Sounds like a loophole to me.

The "debate" over all the bad and scary things that will happen if Obama closes Guantanamo and we incarcerate those detainees in American prisons is so painfully stupid even by the standards of our political discourse that it's hard to put into words

Its worse than 'the most annoying sound in the world', the briefcase full of IOUs, and Lloyd Christmas's imaginary fight with a chief combined. At least the movie didn't pretend to be anything other than an inane comedy.

As to Glenn's original question, its clear the Right does not fear making a mockery of themselves and our politics, over and over and over again. Beyond that, its a wonder these clowns can roll out of bed in the morning.

...let's just send them to Brazil. Glenn can take care of them for us. Heh.

Snarky AND funny Glen... who knew? We need more mocking of their stupidity and less taking it seriously. Keep fighting the good fight.

In 2006, the State of Florida executed Danny Rolling. In the fall of 1990, Rolling killed five students from the University of Florida. Here's how MSNBC characterized his killing spree, after saying he "terrorized Gainesville":

The bodies of his victims were found over three days in late August, just as the University of Florida’s fall semester was beginning. All had been killed with a hunting knife. Some had been mutilated, sexually assaulted and put in shocking poses. One girl’s severed head had been placed on a shelf, her body posed as if seated.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15417276/

The prison where Rolling was held and then executed is only a few miles from where I live. It houses inmates at a wide range of security levels. There was no outcry from any of the surrounding area that housing this domestic terrorist at the prison in Starke posed any threat. Here is a link to the profile of the prison:

http://www.dc.state.fl.us/FACILITIES/region2/205.html

The next time a right-wing pants wetter tells you we can't house Islamo-fascist terrorists in US prisons because they behead Americans, ask them why there was no outcry against Danny Rolling. His victims were just as American as Daniel Pearl.

Are these terrorists really that much worse than the hundreds of thousands of thugs and murderers that we currently incarcerate? Or has the Right watched too many prison break movies?

Here are some real problems obscured by fear mongering:

1. Democrats and Republicans are complicit in fear mongering for their own bad agenda.

2. Juan Cole pointed out on Bill Moyers last Friday that the hype surrounding Pakistan reminds him of the hype before the invasion of Iraq. That hype really does scare me.

3. Obama wants to build a new Gitmo on US soil. The refusal of Congress to allow convincted detainees to be housed in existing prisons will, along with Obama's strong desire to keep detainees in a state of indefinite detention, make the new prison and indefinite detention "feel right" to the public.

4. Most of the people in Guantanomo don't have any business being there in the first place. Had Obama been serious about closing it, they would have been done with the job, or close to it, by now.

In sum, this is just propaganda to make possible the real goal-- Gitmo at home--same or worse rules, Military Commissions and indefinite detention.

From what I can see, a great deal of the press, the Congress, Dick Cheney and Obama all believe essentially in the same thing--it is good and proper to subvert the Constitution. They work seemlessly to achieve this goal. No one should be taken in by any of it.

That illustrates just how caught up in the, promote fear program on to the American people as a constant pace of mental bombardment to soften the target the brain, so that the establishment can continue on with their criminal acts of terrorism against other countries through political foreign policy matters.

This is all that matters to the establishment. To maintain the global program of empire, and false wars of terror, so the elitist can continue to profit from the murder of innocent civilians all around the world.

Fear is most valuable to and for them.

How likely is it that some private contractor who may be making billions over the long term --and spreading it around -- is pushing all the right buttons in DC. The "fear" thing is most likely just a way to get some money. If no one was getting, or should we say "staying," rich off Guantanamo I doubt anyone would give a rat's ass about it.

I think what these crazies are really afraid of is the huge number of primarily African American prisoners who are in prison becoming indoctrinated into radical Muslim theology. Having successfully and disproportionately locked these people away for long and often unjust sentences, they know they have created an ideal breeding ground of disaffected, angry young men who very well may be receptive to a philosphy that rejects "traditional" American values.

to see, 60 years after publishing, just how prescient George Orwell was?

Fear, obiescence, duty and compliance.