Matt Taibbi is baffled by President Obama's contradictory stance on due process:

I don’t get what Obama is doing here. He could

have closed Gitmo, created some sort of tribunal system for the current

inmates, and then stood up on a pedestal and announced that the United

States is no longer a country that detains people without due process.

And as soon as he finished that speech he could have gone on doing what

presidents have done for decades before Bush, finding the soft spots in

international criminal/military law to basically arrest and detain

anyone whom they considered a genuinely dangerous suspect. But what

he’s done instead of that, seemingly, is specifically endorse

preventive detention. He apparently is anxious for people to know that

that is in fact what he stands for.

Which to me is just… weird. I don’t get it. What does he gain from
making this move? I know what we lose, but what does he gain? Votes in
Alabama three years from now? Is that really what this is all about?