Marc Ambinder gets a preview that includes, Step 1) Blame Bush:
Obama will caution that he does not have “the luxury of starting from scratch” — cleaning up something that is “a mess that has left in its wake a flood of legal challenges that we are forced to deal with on a constant basis and that consume the time of government officials whose time would be better spent protecting the country.”
It’s worth remembering that the Bush administration didn’t have the “luxury of starting from scratch,” unless you mean the exciting opportunity to create a whole new building in the crater where the Trade Towers once stood. Bush, if you’ll remember, was cleaning up “a mess” that left “in its wake” a “flood” of dead Americans and immediate threats to the rest of the country. It’s a bit unseemly for Obama to whine about the “legal challenges” left by an administration that was successful in protecting the country from those threats for seven years. Next up, Obama will promise to close Gitmo, and offer a three-part, vague plan for moving forward:
* when feasible, try those who have violated American criminal laws in federal courts. * when necessary, try those who violate the rules of war through Military Commission * when possible, transfer to third countries those detainees who can be safely transferred.
