Democrats, GITMO Detainees, And NIMBY

I for one am getting sick and damned tired of hearing about the GOP ramping up a fear campaign against Congressional Democrats when it comes to National Security. Specifically, now they are going to try to hit Democrats with ads about closing GITMO and "ZOMG teh terrorists will be in America". This is the latest lame ass offering.




Here is the deal, Congressional Democrats have an opportunity here and they are squandering it. What they need to do is stand up and say that they would welcome the opportunity to house some of the detainees in their state. Not only should they project an aura of confidence that American jails can hold foreign terrorists, but also that the move could help create more jobs in their state. They should also point out that those who wouldn’t be similarly enthusiastic about helping to maintain our national security are COWARDS. This NIMBY bullshit that the Republicans are embracing is exactly the chance Dems have been waiting for for years to be able to wrest the mantle of “tough on crime” and “strong on national security” from the GOP. I can’t for the life of me understand why they are scared to take Republican on with this issue. The detainees will be in supermax prisons. They don’t have any frikkin superpowers to be able to break out. And by not confronting the GOP on this and in some cases actually agreeing with them that it would be dangerous to house detainees on US soild they are not only legitimizing what is at its core a nonsensical viewpoint, they are also opening themselves up to charges of being weak on defense of the homeland.

Fuck it, if the Republicans are going to use the issue anyway its time to make them pay for being the bed wetting pussies that they really are. I keep waiting to hear “Send them to us, we know just how to handle them” from ANYBODY in the Democratic caucus but it seems like they are just going to allow Republicans to frame this issue and then turn around and use it as a platform to run against them next year. I can’t tell you how stupid that is and how much it frustrates the hell out of me. We have the WTC bombers in jail in Colorado for pete’s sake along with the Oklahoma City bombers. We have a long and storied history of locking up the most dangerous people in our society and in fact the world in our prisons here. Why in the fuck should Democrats now show so little faith in their consituents that they run away from an issue that they could clearly win on? Somebody needs to step up to the plate and in a frikkin hurry.