Ann Coulter: Gitmo-A-Go-Go

I guess Bush should have backed Katherine Harris, after all. Sen. Mel Martinez, the Senate candidate Bush backed instead of Harris, has become the first Republican to call for shutting down Guantanamo. Martinez hasn't said where the 500 or so suspected al Qaeda operatives currently at Gitmo should be transferred to, but I understand the Neverland Ranch might soon be available.

Maybe Sen. Arlen Specter—the liberal Republican Bush backed instead of conservative Pat Toomey, which still didn't help Bush in Pennsylvania—will step forward to defend the Bush administration. That Karl Rove is a genius.Martinez explained his nonsensical call for the closing of Guantanamo by asking: "Is it serving all the purposes you thought it would serve when initially you began it, or can this be done some other way a little better?

There are terrorists locked up at Guantanamo, no? Admittedly, not enough. (And not under what any frequent flier would describe as "harsh conditions.") Still and all, terrorists are locked up there. That is what we call a "purpose."By becoming a focus of evil for human rights groups, Martinez suggested, Guantanamo has become a recruiting tool for al Qaeda: "It's become an icon for bad stories, " Martinez said, "and at some point you wonder the cost-benefit ratio." (I've been wondering the same thing about Mel Martinez.)

This is preposterous. NBC's "The West Wing" is an icon for bad stories, Gitmo is a place where we keep an eye on evil, dangerous people who want to kill us.Martinez was borrowing a point from Sen. Joe Biden—which is always a dangerous gambit because you never know who said it originally. The "Biden" version was: "I think more Americans are in jeopardy as a consequence of the perception that exists worldwide with its existence than if there were no Gitmo."

So if people around the world believe that if they try to kill Americans they might go to a bad, scary place called Guantanamo, that will make them more likely to kill Americans? How about doing a cost-benefit ratio on that analysis?
(Read the whole column at Human Events Online.)