I don't think White House press secretary Robert Gibbs is long for his job. Yesterday, Obama's flak blurted out that closing Gitmo was a "hasty decision" as reported by RealClear politics chief political correspondent David Paul Kuhn:
The White house spokesman was asked whether it was a "mistake" to request the resources to close Guantanamo Bay without a plan.
"It was a mistake to set up something that became a rallying cry for enemies around the world and to hope for so long that we could simply continue to perpetuate the theory of keeping detainees there while the courts ruled otherwise," Gibbs responded.
"I don't doubt that the President--and I think he'll say this tomorrow--that we've made some hasty decisions that are now going to take some time to unwind. And closing Guantanamo Bay obviously is one of those decisions," he added.
That would seem to indicate that the president is considering either a reversal of his decision or something else that will anger his base during his national security speech today.
Later, Gibbs tried to backtrack:
But later in the briefing Gibbs was asked a follow up question on what looked like a startling admission. Gibbs said that he meant that the "hasty decisions" were made by the previous administration.
"And you said hasty," a reporter asked, "you talked about hasty decisions tomorrow, that it's going to take some time to unwind. Are you talking about the President's hasty decisions or the previous administration's hasty decision as it regards Guantanamo?"
"No, no, no, I'm sorry," Gibbs said. "My boss might want to know the answer to that. No, no, I'm discussing decisions that were made in the previous administration."
The reporter asked again, "You were not referring to the executive order?"
"No, no, no," Gibbs said.
Did the White House spokesman mispeak or just say too much? . Kuhn points out that Gibbs comments "might evoke Michael Kinsley's famous political adage. Kinsley defined a gaffe in Washington as a moment when someone tells the truth."
I would watch and listen to Obama's speech today very closely. He told human rights groups yesterday that he was still considering some form of "preventive detention" for the Gitmo prisoners which could mean building a special dedicated facility on the mainland. If so, how dumb would that be? Simply moving the prisoners from one perfectly good facility to one here in the states would be transparently political.
But this president has proved himself to be "transparently political" on a lot of issues already.
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