As The Waterboard Turns: Plot Update.

It's true that politics is more twisted than the worst soap opera. I've been following the storyline of this whole Guantanamo Bay fiasco, which I like to call 'As The Waterboard Turns', and I think it's time to do a little recap/commentary on the plot.

A lot has happened in the past 6 months, but here is an abridged timeline:

Jan 2008 to Jan 2009: During his entire campaign for the Presidency, Barack Obama promises to shut down the U.S. facility at Guantanamo Bay. The international community enthusiastically agrees. Sensing blood in the water and a strong anti-Bush sentiment in the nation, the entire Democratic Party backs the idea.

Jan-March 2009: Obama wins the presidency and quickly makes an executive order to close Guantanamo. The natural question of "what do we do with these people?" arises. At the international table, other nations mutter and look away when Obama asks for help. At home, political winds shift as Americans pulls a big 'NOT IN MY BACKYARD'; Gallup polls show strong support for the closure of Gitmo, but poor support for doing anything else with the detainees. Politically, the Democratic party turns coat and stabs Obama in the back by refusing to fund Guantanamo's closure.

Apr-May 2009: Suddenly, France steps up to the table and says "I'll take a few detainees." Australia offers to take 1, Bermuda takes 4, Italy pledges to take some as well. The international community pulls the equivalent of a slow-clap moment as they decide to divide up the daunting task of dealing with detainees and things are looking up. Except, even after international contributions, that still leaves a couple hundred detainees to deal with.

Obama proposes dealing with them the, um, LEGAL way, by putting detainees on trial or offering to let them plead guilty in exchange for lighter sentences (see for precedent: DAVID HICKS) as a way to save face, deal with the problem, and semi-punish possible wrongdoers (some argue that a lost decade and periodic torture might be punishment enough).

But, still, there is no money for a closure and the question of criminal trials raises another issue: it will force the U.S. to either show evidence which may be classified information or it will force the U.S. to admit that it has no evidence. Republicans smell weakness and press the advantage.

(Let's take a quick commercial break to get one thing straight: the intelligence community, at best, is split over "enhanced interrogation techniques" or torture. Some swear by it. Others deny its usefulness. Some say it can be useful but is unreliable. Some say it is useful but not worth doing. The only man in Congress who has actually been tortured is screaming that it doesn't work, though no one listens. This ain't "dischord" like .05% of scientists swearing that climate change is not happening in the face of overwhelming evidence and a 99.5% solidarity rate-- this is honest-to-goodness 'everyone has an opinion but no one REALLY knows' stuff.

Back to our regularly scheduled recap.)

June 2009: President Obama, in a pragmatic if politically dangerous move, offers a 3/5 compromise of sorts (yeah, I went there). He proposes trying most detainees and punishing, freeing, or transferring accordingly but (this is a HUGE but) a small number of detainees which are the 'worst of the worst' or might jeopardize our intelligence-gathering will remain imprisoned indefinitely. No word on exactly what "a small number" is, but probably significantly less than the 250-some in-limbo detainees currently at Guantanamo.

So now we're up to date on the drama. Obama threw out a line, but no bites from Congress or the American people. Civil liberties groups are predictably mad but liberal and conservative politicians alike are strangely silent as to whether or not this is a good compromise.

Two interpretations of this situation are possible. On the one hand, this result is evidence of a centrist President walking the finest of lines to fulfill his promises as much as possible within the confines of his power. On the other hand it's evidence of a President showing weakness, capitulating to political and public pressure, or downright lying and continuing the policies of his predeccesor which he attacked vehemently during the election.

More importantly for me, it's a case study in the spinelessness of mainstream politics. The god damn Democrats ruined a golden opportunity to show unity by caving so quickly to the smallest of public scrutiny. They could have stood as one and said "we are going to do this: we are going to disperse these inmates among our high-security military prisons, try them one by one, and all will be fine" and they could have made that happen. And what would the consequences have been? The inmates weren't going to break out. No one was going to invade Leavenworth and free them. American soil would remain fertile despite a suspected terrorist standing on it. The Democrats could have made a united front, stood up to the public pressure (which was nothing compared to what George W. Bush and Bill Clinton went through), and as soon as inmates were moved and nothing bad happened, the American public would go "huh, guess it wasn't that big of a deal" and move on with their lives.

Instead, Nancy Pelosi led a frantic charge to undercut her President-- the man she backed 9 months ago and will back again in 3 years.

But what's done is done, and we have what we have. The question is, where do we go from here?

Though I'm not exactly qualified to say (I'm no less qualified than most of televisions pundits), given the situation I think an executive order indefinitely detaining a small handful of prisoners while dealing with the rest is the best possible scenario for President Obama. Firstly, Guantanamo could be shut down and a symbol of American hypocrisy would disappear forever-- Promise kept. Secondly, a good 80% of inmates would be dealt with fairly and legally-- promise 80% kept.

Everyone would be a little miffed at the result, but everyone would also be pleased with some aspect: civil liberty proponents would have fewer cases to fight; conservatives would believe they helped ensure America's safety; liberals could say goodbye to Guantanamo forever; President Obama could claim 1.8 out of 2 promises kept.

That's not a perfect score, but 1.8 out of 2 is better than the 0 out of 2 Obama will get if Congress continues to refuse funding Gitmo's closure. He can afford a 1.8. He can't afford a 0.

1.8 out of 2 makes Obama look like a compromiser.

0 out of 2 makes Obama look like a loser.

I realize that this is an argument of degree and it's perfectly fair to claim that as long as one person is held illegally we have no moral ground to stand on, but given the circumstances I'll gladly take 'no moral ground with ten detainees' over 'no moral ground with 250'.