Obama Should Get Over His Gitmo Obsession

Charles Krauthammer finds the White House decision to try the Detroit terror suspect as a civilian nothing short of idiotic: A guy who was "singing quite freely" when he was seized was suddenly "lawyered up and shut up." Even if they wanted to try him eventually as a regular criminal, they should have detained him in military custody first, for interrogation. The excuse that the Bush administration treated shoe-bomber Richard Reid as a civilian isn't good enough, considering that the current anti-terror apparatus wasn't in place at the time of Reid's attempted attack, Krauthammer writes in the Washington Post.

Krauthammer chalks it up to Obama's distaste for Guantanamo, which he vowed to close again this week. The president keeps citing Gitmo as a grievance that incites terrorists, Krauthammer scoffs, when jihadists have an endless, ever-growing list of grievances and are still bitter about Islam losing Andalusia in 1492. Obama's "recruiting" rationale for pressing ahead with Gitmo closure is, hopefully, "political expediency rather than real belief," Krauthammer writes. "With suicide bombers in the air, cynicism is far less dangerous to the country than naivete." (More Charles Krauthammer stories.)