Barack Obama is widely expected to fulfill his campaign promise to close the US detention center at Guantanamo, if not on Day One of his administration, as soon as can practically be arranged.

The prison at Guantanamo Bay has been made into a symbol of Bush Administration offenses by the left, and its closing will appropriately signal the left’s victory in the struggle with George W. Bush for public perception of reality. But, delightful as the consummating moment of wet liberal humanitarianism’s triumph ought to be, clever democrats like Obama can probably already predict the ultimate consequences.

Simply transferring jihadis to US federal prisons will amount to moving them to the US domestic justice system, with all of them armed and equipped with top flight representation right out of America’s best law schools and white shoe law firms. Renditioning Guantanamo inmates to remote foreign locations where leftwing reporters and attorneys from Shearman & Sterling are in shorter supply would be effective, but rendition has been made into a dirty word.

The Bush Administration, squirming and wriggling ineffectively under continual liberal attack, already released all the likely safe bets and questionable case prisoners.

Reuters reported yesterday on just how well that worked out.

The Pentagon said on Tuesday that 61 former detainees from its military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, appear to have returned to terrorism since their release from custody.

The Pentagon declined to give the names of the 61 released detainees, but at least one, Abdullah Saleh al-Ajmi, is pretty well known. He blew up seven Iraqi security force officers and himself in a suicide bombing last April 26th.

I’d say Barack Obama is in a no win situation.