Why would the New York Times report on something that would appear to reflect poorly on the Obama Administration? Because it also happens to go out of its way to lay all of the blame on the Pentagon, insisting President Obama bears no blame whatsoever. You know, despite the fact he’s Commander-in-Chief and could’ve ordered the report whenever he felt like it.

But at least we get the news:

Two administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said the report was being held up by Defense Department employees fearful of upsetting the White House, at a time when even Congressional Democrats have begun to show misgivings over Mr. Obama’s plan to close Guantánamo…

The report was made available by an administration official sympathetic to its findings who said the delay was creating unnecessary “conspiracy theories” about the holdup…

“If we hold it, then everybody claims it’s political and you’re protecting the Obama administration,” said a [DOD] official, who asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. “And if we let it go, then everybody says you’re undermining Obama.”…

Among the 74 former prisoners that the report says are again engaged in terrorism, 29 have been identified by name by the Pentagon, including 16 named for the first time in the report. The Pentagon has said that the remaining 45 could not be named because of national security and intelligence-gathering concerns…

The Pentagon has so far provided no way of authenticating its 45 unnamed recidivists, and only a few of the 29 people who are identified by name can be independently verified as having engaged in terrorism since their release. Many of the 29 are simply described as associating with terrorists or training with terrorists, with almost no other details provided.

One in seven released detainees return to engaging in terrorism. But let’s move these people into our domestic prison system and/or release them on our soil. Fantastic idea.

By the way, I’m not buying the NYT’s insistence that there’s nothing Obama could do in this matter. The report was made available to administration officials, yet they couldn’t manage to leak it or release it themselves? Their boss in the Commander-in-Chief.