Gregory Craig Steps Down

The New York Times reports that Gregory B. Craig, father of the Obama administration’s Guantanamo Bay closure policy, has stepped down as the President’s chief attorney in the White House. While interesting in itself, what caught my eye was this graf:

Mr. Craig took considerable criticism for those decisions and for not doing more to build consensus within the administration or prepare the political ground in Congress. The prospect of closing Guantanamo in the first year of Mr. Obama’s presidency is now almost certain not to happen.

In particular, I was struck by the use of the word “prospect” in the second sentence. A synonym for prospect is “hope” (a very Obamaian word, to be sure). But wait – if I recall correctly, one of the President’s first acts upon taking office was signing the order authorizing the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. Aren’t we well past the prospect stage for closing Gitmo? Wasn’t that a done deal?

Apparently not, at least according to The New York Times. No, when this President takes concrete action that was always ill-conceived and now proven untenable, and he is forced to backtrack, his mistakes disappear in a puff of smoke. Back to the happy land of hope ‘n’ change that they sprang from.

In the words of Joni Mitchell, “That was just a dream some of us had.”

Via Ace of Spades