Mikey Moonbeam

Who's been telling you all along that Jim Webb is a flake? And who voted for the oddball anyway?

Maybe this will give you pause:

Webb opposes Gitmo timetable
By Andrew Cain, Richmond Times-Dispatch

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., says he now disagrees with President Barack Obama's timetable to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in January 2010.

But Webb supports Obama's idea of reviving military commissions to try some terror suspects now detained there.

Webb, appearing on ABC's "This Week" program, acknowledged that in January he said the president had established a reasonable timeline for closing the detention center.

He said he has changed his mind on the timetable.

"We spent hundreds of millions of dollars building an appropriate facility with all security precautions at Guantanamo to try these cases," Webb said.

"I do not believe they should be tried in the United States."

He added: "We should at the right time close Guantanamo, but I don't think that it should be closed in terms of transferring people here."

Webb said he supports military commissions because "there are issues of evidence that you cannot take care of inside the regular American court system," such as classified information that might affect how the U.S. collects intelligence.

"On the one hand, it can be argued that they were simply conducting dissident activities against the government of China," Webb said.

"On the other, they accepted training from al-Qaida, and, as a result they have taken part in terrorism. I don't believe that they should come to the United States." [link]

Translated: "I have no control over the words that come out of my mouth."

Translated: "I wholeheartedly support President Bush and his efforts to combat global terrorism."

For the love of God.

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Moe Lane:

"Oh, Webb is saying that he’s merely against the timetable, but that’s just political-speak for ‘I need to start laying down the groundwork for my retreat on this issue.’ By this time next year he’ll be telling everybody how he’s fully satisfied that Obama’s ‘reform’ of Gitmo addresses the issues brought up during the campaign, etc, etc, etc. Amazing how quickly some of these guys catch Washington Establishment Disease, huh?

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Allahpundit:

"To be more precise: He now opposes closing it anytime soon but naturally is A-OK with closing it at some murky, distant time in the future. Which, as far as I can tell, means he holds the same position on it as George W. Bush or Dick Cheney."