Question of the day

A senior Obama administration official pushed back against critics of the White House’s plans to transfer some detainees at Guantanamo Bay to Yemen as it moves toward closing the facility, saying the process for transfers are “consistent with our national security interests.”

The fresh criticism, including a letter from Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) calling on President Obama to halt the transfer of detainees to Yemen, comes after reports of links between that country and the attempted Christmas Day terrorist attack.

“I am aware of a lot of people pointing back at the way the transfers were handled under the Bush administration that apparently they have some concerns about that,” said the official, who had not seen the senators’ letter. “I didn’t hear many of those concerns at the time, but there were obviously hundreds and hundreds of detainees that were transferred under the old regime.”

So, what’s more shocking? That an administration official would actually acknowledge publicly that they are mimicing a Bush-era policy (a man and administration they have been concurrently blaming and campaigning against since they took office over 11 months ago) or the fact that they are behaving in such a thick-headed manner (remember the sin of “moral certitude”?) as to continue to deport Gitmo detainees to a terrorism training hot spot in the face of such overwhelming countering common sense? Common sense shared by heavyweight Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein who is urging the administration to halt the transfer of detainees to Yemen.

P.S. The nutroots-inspired regime reference did not escape our notice. When dealing with the absolute whiniest administration ever, sometimes further commenting to the same becomes redundant.