February 25, 2016 10:53 AM UTC

Gardner Takes Neato Gitmo Field Trip

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Denver Post’s Mark Matthews reports, Colorado’s junior Sen. Cory Gardner is taking a taxpayer-funded junket to the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to “see for himself” how the remaining 91-some odd detainees left in legal limbo there are getting on:

U.S. Sens. Cory Gardner and Jerry Moran — two ardent critics of the White House’s drive to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay — are preparing in the coming days to visit the U.S. military base in Cuba…

One reason the two GOP legislators are opposed to administration efforts to move Guantanamo Bay detainees to the U.S. is that sites in Colorado and Kansas have been mentioned as places where the detainees could ultimately wind up.

“Transferring detainees to the U.S. is illegal, and it’s rejected by Coloradans, top Colorado law enforcement officials, and Americans across the country,” Gardner said Tuesday in a statement.

Sen. Gardner’s opposition to moving Guantanamo Bay detainees to American prisons for eventual trial or release has been intractable for years–he’s been dooming and glooming the possibility since 2009, after all, when he originally warned as a state representative of a “pipeline of terror from Kabul to Colorado” if Gitmo detainees were moved here. It’s tough to imagine what exactly he will learn from his junket to Guantanamo Bay, but it’s a nice way to break up the winter blues.

Support in Colorado for President Barack Obama’s latest proposal to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay is complicated by the more nuanced opposition to transferring Gitmo detainees to Colorado by Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet. Bennet’s stated position is that he supports closure of the detention center, but Colorado has no suitable facility to hold what are properly considered military detainees. Unfortunately, the difference in Bennet’s position has gone more or less undifferentiated in news reporting, and as a result doesn’t do much to rally Democratic base supporters inclined to support the President.

Overall, the politics of closing Gitmo and resolving the status of the remaining detainees do not appear conducive to success for the administration, but as a major campaign promise from early in Obama’s campaigns he was obliged to try once more. There’s little question that Gitmo’s detention center will close someday, and with it a deeply controversial chapter in American history will end.

Just not in this election year, folks.