We were told yesterday in a diary here that the NBC Juctice correspondent had told Chris Matthews on Sunday that the Obama administration had found no grounds to detain any Guantanamo prisoner indefinitely.
This information is contradicted by White House officials quoted in a New York Times article already online and to be printed tomorrow:
Officials said the most problematic group was made up of detainees to be held without trial, who are deemed by the administration to be too dangerous to release but who cannot be tried because evidence against them may not be usable in court. Administration officials say they hope this group will be as small as possible, acknowledging opposition by civil liberties groups.
But they said they were convinced there were some detainees who must be detained without charges because of their backgrounds, like extensive time in a militant training camp or a long association with a terrorist group.
Williams said:
Williams - "The Obama administration's review of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay has yet to find a single detainee who needs needs to be held indefinitely, and their feeling now is they may only have two categories: those to be released, and those to be put on trial. This third category of people that have to be held forever? That may simply not exist."
Matthews - "In otherwords, we can either prove a criminal case against somebody, or we let them go?"
Williams - "Yes."
(emphasis his)
The problem lies in the fact that Williams said maybe, but when prodded by Matthews --an atrocious journalist who wants a yes or a no--switched to a categorical "yes."
"Bin Laden may be dead" and "Bin Laden is dead," are two very different things"
This reminds me of the time Hillary said a million times that Obama was not muslim, but was virtually forced to say "as far as she knew" he was not a muslim, thanks to the insistence of the interviewer whose name I can't recall.