Another turn in the learning curve

Well, well, well. For a group that never misses a chance to excoriate the previous administration, it's funny how often Team Obama eventually realizes that the Bush-era morons weren't quite as moronic as first thought:

President Obama's advisers are nearing a recommendation that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, be prosecuted in a military tribunal, administration officials said, a step that would reverse Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s plan to try him in civilian court in New York City.

Good thing, too, because it was always a monumentally stupid idea. New York has enough trouble these days without having a horrifying circus come to town, to say nothing of the madness of pretending that people who commit acts of war should be tried in civilian courts.

So why the change, which is sure to enrage Obama's left-wing base at a time when he needs them to remain quiet? WaPo writers Anne Kornblut and Peter Finn offer a suggestion:

If Obama accepts the likely recommendation of his advisers, the White House may be able to secure from Congress the funding and legal authority it needs to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and replace it with a facility within the United States. The administration has failed to meet a self-imposed one-year deadline to close Guantanamo.

But that seems silly, doesn't it? The Republicans oppose closing Gitmo on general principle and would offer no support for closing it. And what's in it for the lefties? Kornblut and Finn answer the question this way:

Privately, administration officials are bracing for the ire of disappointed liberals and even some government lawyers should the administration back away from promises to use civilian courts to adjudicate the cases of some of the 188 detainees who remain at Guantanamo.

Allow me to translate from Beltwayspeak: nothing.

This has been the problem all along for Obama: most of the true believers who came to Washington with him are as delusional as he is. Other than the baying liberals who carried Obama's sedan chair, most people simply didn't think or care that much about Gitmo, holding the eminently sensible view that (a) we have to keep the bad guys somewhere and (b) it better not be in my back yard. And most people also don't share the left-wing piety over such matters. If you ask the average person, all they want is for someone, anyone, to keep people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed from hurting them. Although it's taken over a year for Team Obama to understand that, this decision is a step in the right direction.