Why Did Republicans Block Any Attempt To Close Gitmo Then Blamed Obama For Not Closing Gitmo

Why hasn't President Obama managed to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay?

The reason Obama failed can be summed up pretty simply: Scare tactics destroyed the political will to get it done.Richard White and Christian Bergland come close to desribing how it happened, but even when Christian acknowledges that Democrats "weren't exactly lining up" to bring the prisoners into the US, he still understates it. Democrats ran away.Closing Guantanamo was one of Obama's earliest priorities. He issued an Executive Order to get it done within his first few days of office, and the Democrats had control of the House and Senate during his first two years.The Democrats didn't have "full control" of the Senate for much of that time, though. On inauguration day, 2009, there were 58 Senators in the Democratic caucus. Arlen Spector defected from the GOP to the Democrats in April. Al Franken's contested election was settled in July, but then Ted Kennedy died in August. Paul Kirk took over Kennedy's seat in September, but then Kirk was replaced by Scott Brown the following February. The Democrats had a 60 vote super-majority for only 6 months, but Spector wasn't really reliable, and on top of that there was a group of "weak Democrats" who were up for re-election in 2010 and were from states that had voted against Obama.Not having full control of the Senate, however, isn't why Obama failed to close Guantanamo. In fact, Democrats in Congress share almost as much of the blame for failing to close it as Republicans.The vote in May, 2009 in the Senate to deny funding for closing Guantanamo was 90-6. It was an overwhelming rebuke to the President. The only votes against denial were from Senators Levin, Reed, Leahy, Durbin, Harkin and Whitehouse. And Democrats in the House had already stripped the funding from their version of the bill as well.The Democrats and Republicans in Congress weren't alone in their responsibility for this, by any means. Governors and Mayors around the country resisted efforts to bring Guantanamo prisoners to their states and cities for imprisonment and trial, too.