Taking non-existent prisoners from non-existent prisons...

...and sending them to a prison that he wants to shut down?

Does Bush really think none of us have memories that last longer than a goldfish's?

From today's Globe and Mail:

After his administration spent months steadfastly refusing to confirm the existence of the widely criticized "black sites," Mr. Bush not only acknowledged that terrorists had been "held and questioned outside the United States" by the Central Intelligence Agency but he praised the program as one that had broken up several plots and kept "potential mass murderers off the streets before they were able to kill us." The presumed terrorists, including suspects in the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000 and the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, have already been transferred to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba where 455 other suspects are also being held...

The surprise admission by Mr. Bush was part of a series of announcements yesterday timed for maximum political effect just days before the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Mr. Bush said he was introducing legislation that would allow "enemy combatants" to be tried by special military commissions.

The Pentagon also made public new rules banning abusive treatment of prisoners, marking a reversal from earlier policy which said the terrorists did not qualify for that kind of legal protection.

In asking Congress to set out the rules for the military commissions, Mr. Bush was responding to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June that earlier trial plans violated U.S. and international law. He was making it clear that in the future the United States will play by the rules of the Geneva Conventions when it comes to the treatment of prisoners.

But by announcing the transfer of the 14 suspects to Guantanamo, Mr. Bush was anxious to portray himself as the leader of the war on terrorism and to put his Democratic opponents on the defensive in the run-up to crucial congressional mid-term elections in November. The families of Sept. 11 victims were invited to witness the President's 35-minute speech in the White House, which was broadcast live on national TV.

Democratic Senator Charles Schumer lashed out at the Bush administration for flouting international law for so long. "Their bull-in-the-china-shop approach -- ignore the Constitution, ignore the rule of law -- has made us worse off than if we had gone to Congress originally."