Winging it

Karl Rove notes signs that the Obama team just seems to be playing things by ear, most notably with:

• The failure to properly vet Cabinet nominees
• The outsourcing of the stimulus bill writing to Congress
• Treasury Secretary Geithner's bank rescue non-plan
• Guantanamo Bay

While the first three items are probably pretty familiar to most people by now the last one may be less so. Basically it seems the Obama team, while anxious to close Gitmo, isn't quite sure how this is going to work.

Actual quotes from Obama (FYI "Greg" is Greg Craig, the White House counsel):

In order to effect the appropriate disposition of individuals currently detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo, uh, and promptly to close the detention facility at Guantanamo consistent with the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and interests of justice, I hereby order. And we then we will then, uh, provide the process whereby Guantanamo will be closed no later than, uh, one year from now. We will be... Uhhh.... Ummm.... Is there a separate executive order, Greg, with respect to how we're going to dispose of the detainees? Is that it, eh, uh, what we're doing?

...What we're doing here is to set up a special interagency task force on detainee disposition. They are going to provide me with information in terms of how we are able to deal in the disposition of some of the detainees that may be currently in Guantanamo that we cannot transfer to other countries, who could pose a serious danger to the United States, uh, but, uh, we cannot try because of various problems related to evidence, uh, in a Article 3 court. So this task force is going to provide us with, uh, a series of recommendations on, uh, that. Is that correct, Greg?

Nobody is perfect of course but after a while this kind of thing starts to become a pattern. It's almost as though this guy has never been in charge of anything before.