President Obama's toughest sell on Guantanamo: Senate Dems

[Tx4obama]

Obama's toughest sell on Guantanamo: Senate Dems

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama's hardest sell in his renewed push to close the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, may be members of his own party - moderate Senate Democrats facing tough re-election bids next year in the strongly Republican South.

Obama has stepped up the pressure to shutter the naval facility, driven in part by his revised counterterrorism strategy and the 4-month-old stain of the government force-feeding Guantanamo prisoners on hunger strikes to prevent them from starving to death. Civil liberties groups and liberals have slammed Obama for failing to fulfill his 2008 campaign promise to close the installation and find another home for the 166 terror suspects being held there indefinitely.

Republicans and some Democrats in Congress have repeatedly resisted the president's attempts to close the facility, arguing that the prisoners are too dangerous to be moved to U.S. soil, that Guantanamo is a perfectly adequate prison and that the administration has failed to offer a viable alternative.

White House counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco lobbied House members in advance of several votes last month to no avail. The House delivered strong votes to keep Guantanamo open and to prevent Obama from transferring detainees to Yemen. Separately, the president's recent appointment of a special envoy on Guantanamo, Cliff Sloan, has met with a collective shrug on Capitol Hill.

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Full article here: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_GUANTANAMO_POLITICS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-07-05-14-57-36

[SunSeeker]

1. Even if Obama convinced the Dems, GOP senators would filibuster.

And they wouldn't have to catheterize themselves.

[Bluenorthwest]

2. You mean Senate Centrists, the Blue Doggies and such. My Democratic Senators

want it closed, and this piece makes it sound like they don't exist when the majority of Democratic Senators stand with them, a few as always stand with the Republicans because they are Conservatives no matter the Party they claim. Same lot opposed to LGBT equality for years, just like their GOP pals. Same lot. This is not news.

[dsc]

3. I have to stand up for Hagan in regards to gay rights

She backed ENDA and ending DADT from the get go. She recently supported marriage rights despite the fact her state just voted 61 to 39 to ban both marriages and civil unions and private recognition of our rights. I have many problems with Hagan but gay rights isn't one of them.