I do, however, think that we need to remain focused on Jan 20, 2010 as Gitmo Gone Day. I have reason to believe that it was handed down to those required to work out how to accomplish it as a fixed date that was not open to negotiation, although of course the order was not necessarily accompanied by the presentation of all the tools required to complete the job.

However, when I read about the funding shortfall for dealing with the closure of Guantanamo the other day, it made me hope — just briefly — that such constraints would lead to the answer that you and I and others have been pressing for for years anyway — do all in your power to send home or rehouse all but those regarded as truly dangerous. It can’t cost THAT much, surely, to free 200 + prisoners from Guantanamo, can it?

And the jurisdictional deprivation is to actually prevent the courts from ordering– and obtaining– the “cleared” detainee’s actual release.

I offer this coda: the Obama Administration’s view on its executive review is actually even more insidious than described above. The Government proposes that in the event the executive review clears someone, such clearance would deprive the courts of further jurisdiction. In other words, notwithstanding a multi-year habeas corpus case to prove the unlawfulness of detention, if the Government concedes that unlawfulness, the courts can go home. It’s, of course, the logical extension of the Government’s position in the Kiyemba (Uighurs) case [to paraphrase President Andrew Jackson]: Judge Urbina has made his decision, now let him enforce it… or, if you like, habeas corpus is merely an academic exercise, and if it’s politically inconvenient for the Government to honor a court’s law-based decision, well, it just won’t honor it (and the Executive branch has the guns… literally).

This will all, of course, require yet a further decision from the S. Ct. (the irony being that the kind of jurist President Obama is likely to nominate to replace Justice Souter, i.e., one against too many restrictions on abortion, is likely to be one who would also side against the Government on issues of executive powers in general). But it seemed that Boumediene had already answered these questions by making habeas a Constitution-based remedy; end of story, right? Evidently… no.

And when the next case answers them again… will it require yet another S. Ct. case to implement that decision, and so on?

Unless the Obama Administration surprises everyone by unilaterally releasing the overwhelming majority of detainees on its own in relatively short order, the promise of “closing Guantanamo” by 20 January 2009 will be unkept; ironically, President Obama will probably not be too unhappy about this, as only people who supported him will be unhappy about that, and at least in the national security area, he seems content to have adopted his predecessor’s playbook.

Unless the President seriously starts to “feel it” politically, with overwhelming public outrage… we can expect business as usual to proceed.

I mean, she’s already got the job, and we know she’s likable and beautiful (but honestly, she’s teetering on the edge of vapid). What else has she got? I for one would like to see her strut that other stuff, and soon!