Carol Rosenberg of The Miami Herald is still suffering from "Bush derangement syndrome." A guest on Andrea Mitchell's MSNBC program on Monday, she admitted that the Administration neglected to inform people about the Taliban prisoner release, but she suggested Obama learned the tactic from George W. Bush:
The administration moved on its own quickly and was in a way using a page from the Bush administration playbook of cutting out Congress and cutting out the Red Cross and doing what it thought was right at the moment and telling people afterwards.
Rosenberg did her best to run interference for the White House first admitting, "They did not comply with the 30-day statutory notice requirement,” but continuing that the White House has been suggesting a deal like this was in the works “for a number of years now.”
Finally she went after Bush:
Yes, they did not comply with the 30-day statutory notice requirement. The White House and Pentagon said the President had the executive authority to do this particularly because it was this delicate swap for a prisoner of war. And they chose to not notify them until the actual exchange was underway but it shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone. We've known that this administration has been talking about a Qatari deal for years now and identities of these five men, this is not something that came out of the blue. On Saturday when I saw the c-17 on the landing strip at Guantanamo it seemed to me this was the deal that was going down. But it was a surprise to the degree that they didn't get notice and I have to tell you, it was also a surprise to the Red Cross. They told me this morning they didn't get their notice or have an opportunity to do an exit interview with these five men. What I think it says is that the administration moved on its own quickly and was in a way using a page from the Bush administration playbook of cutting out Congress and cutting out the Red Cross and doing what it thought was right at the moment and telling people afterwards.
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