‘I Hate My Policies’

Attorney General Eric Holder says (or had his flunkies say) he only understood the severity of his own actions against Fox News reporter James Rosen when he was sitting at his breakfast table reading The Washington Post on a Monday morning.

Yes, that’s what he told the Daily Beast, which did him the inestimable favor of not crumpling to the ground in hysterical peals of laughter.

For one thing, the story about the Rosen subpoena was released on the Post’s Web site the day before. To believe the tale about Holder and the breakfast table, you have to believe no one told him about it on that Sunday.

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We know this from tough reporting that comes from inside the administration.

As Thomas Joscelyn wrote in the Long War Journal in March 2012, citing a report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “167 ex-Gitmo detainees are either ‘confirmed’ or ‘suspected’ of reengaging in ‘terrorist or insurgent activities’ after their release. . . . The estimated recidivism rate now stands at 27.9 percent — or a little more than 1 out of every 4 ex-detainees.”

Eric Holder says he feels a sense of “creeping remorse” about the Rosen case. Gee, that’s too bad. Maybe we should use this as a model — how to prevent “creeping remorse” in the future.

For instance: One way to prevent Barack Obama from experiencing similar “remorse” in the case of a Gitmo recidivist who does something dreadful after the closing of the facility would be, say, to keep it open.

Read the full article here.