Better Late Than Never

The Hill:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is blocking the Defense authorization bill from floor consideration because of provisions that would keep the Guantánamo Bay prison camp in business, prompting Republican protest.

Reid sent a letter to Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the panel’s ranking Republican, protesting the bill’s language related to terrorist detainees.

The legislation, which was voted out of committee with a strong bipartisan majority, would authorize indefinite detention of suspected terrorists, require mandatory military custody of suspected terrorists and put stringent restrictions on the transfer of detainees to the civilian court system.

Reid says he will not bring the bill to the Senate floor unless those provisions are dropped or modified, citing President Obama’s opposition to the language.

“I do not intend to bring this bill to the floor until concerns regarding the bill’s detainee provisions are resolved,” Reid wrote in the Oct. 4 letter. “The Obama administration and several of our Senate colleagues have expressed serious concerns about the implications of the detainee provisions included in the legislation,” Reid wrote.

Another strongly worded letter, I know, but a bit more than that, too. We'll see.