A New Poster Boy for Republican Obstruction

I see that another nomination proposed to the Senate by President Obama is being held up by the Republicans in the Senate.  In this case, it is a single Republican, Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, who refuses to allow the nomination of Eric Fanning as Secretary of the Army to go forward without an explicit assurance from the President that no prisoners from Guantanamo would be transferred to the prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Needless to say, there are no concerns about Fanning’s qualifications but it should be noted that Fanning would also happen to be the highest ranking openly gay official in the Pentagon. And, of course, the fact that we already have a number of terrorists in prisons within the continental United States – the maximum security prison in Colorado currently holds Omar Abdel-Rahman, the mastermind behind the 1993 WTC bombing, and Zacarias Moussaoui, one of 9/11 conspirators – apparently has no impact on Senator Roberts’ thinking. It is so good of Senator Roberts to continue to provide terrorists with a talking point and recruiting tool by making sure Guantanamo stays open and at the same time leaving the US Army leaderless. And it provides such an affirmative example to other countries that we ask to tackle terrorism within their own borders. Is this what Republicans call “standing up to the terrorists”?