When mayor Ken Livingstone introduced the congestion charge in 2003, the US embassy refused to pay, claiming it was a form of local taxation and foreign diplomats were therefore exempt.

Inevitably this was portrayed as typical Bush era arrogance.

So with a new Obama-appointed ambassador in residence, one Labour member of the London assembly, Murad Qureshi, wrote to the President asking him to reverse the policy.

His letter is an absolute must-read. Check out the fawning references to the “mean-spirited decision taken under your predecessor’s administration” and its “ignoble attitude” and “unfortunate tone”.

“I know you are seeking to introduce a new era of international relations with your Presidency, one based on decency and mutual respect,” he goes on, “and in that spirit I respectfully ask you to . . .” You get the idea.

Sadly, it seems that in between his very decent and respectful bombing of Pakistan and continued detention of the Gitmo prisoners, our hero has told Mr Qureshi where to go. The policy on the C-charge stands.

Score another one for the Obama-Bush doctrine.

This Associated Press report can waffle all it likes about ‘courtroom-prison’ complexes and ‘hybrid’ systems but the end result is the same: the president who campaigned against the ‘internationally reviled’ Gitmo detention centre is not closing it down, he is transferring it to the mainland.

Take a bow, Karl Rove.

One of the cliches beloved of sports stars is ‘I’m my own biggest critic’. In Barack Obama’s case, that is very close to being true.

His ridiculously unprincipled decision to maintain indefinite detention without trial for the Gitmo elite – having held that up as the great evil of the Bush administration – continues to bother him.

“It gives me huge pause,” Obama said in an interview with The Associated Press. “And that’s why we’re going to proceed very carefully on this front. And it may turn out that after looking at all the dimensions of this that I don’t feel comfortable with the proposals that surface on how to deal with this issue.”

It gives him huge pause all right, because he knows how hypocritical it is. But he needn’t worry. Since announcing it on May 21 he has got almost no flak for it whatsoever in the MSM.

For President Bush, Gitmo represented a tough choice. Do you detain and take the political penalty or release and pay the security penalty?

For President Obama, it’s much easier. Why pay any penalty at all when, thanks to a tame press at home and abroad, you can carry on detaining while taking the plaudits for “closing” Gitmo?

The decision to close Guantanamo Bay, or at the very least the premature announcement for political gain, looks increasingly disreputable, if you believe this report in the Washington Post.

Karl Rove must be smiling.

Credit where it’s due. We teased Bob Schieffer for holding his nose when interviewing Cheney on Face the Nation two weeks ago but he gives a fair summary of the Obama-Cheney spat here.

Schieffer has Colin Powell on Face the Nation tomorrow.

UPDATE Video embed removed, click ‘here’ above to watch it.

Dress it up all you want, that is the essence of what President Obama said in his speech today.

In his own words:

There may be a number of people who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes, but who nonetheless pose a threat to the security of the United States.

And is he going to release them? No, he is not.

Will they remain outside the legal system? Yes, they will.

He is not going to “close Guantanamo” in the sense that the rest of the world understands it. He is going to open a new Guantanamo in a maximum security prison somewhere in the United States.

All the talk of standards, procedures and periodic reviews is so much hot air. These people will be held indefinitely, without trial.

Karl Rove was right. And so were we. This is what we said on January 26:

Obama may have announced the “closure” of Guantanamo [but] he has not actually addressed the issue that led to it being set up in the first place: what do you do with people who you know are too dangerous to be set free but against whom there is not enough legal evidence to secure a conviction? Bush’s answer was honest: you keep them locked up. The honest Obama answer would be: if you cannot convict them, you let them go free and accept the consequences. But Obama hasn’t said that – yet. And Rove’s prediction is that he never will.

President Obama will make a major speech on national security on Thursday and the main issue he will need to address is Guantanamo.

So far he’s collected all the credit for “closing it” without a) actually doing so or b) facing up to what the consequences of this are.

But don’t underestimate his ability to come out with a stream of feel-good waffle about “our values” which will have the press eating out of his hand again.

Meanwhile our friend Harry Reid is doing a sterling job of boxing himself into a corner.

To no one’s great surprise, President Obama has decided to continue the system of trial by military tribunal for the Guantanamo inmates.

Cue mild gnashing of teeth on the left, more in sorrow than in anger of course.

Karl Rove’s prediction is looking good.

President Obama announced on Day 1 of his Presidency that Guantanamo would close. A rejoicing world took that to mean the detainees would be either given a jury trial or released.

Karl Rove said at the time he’d believe that when it happens.

Now there’s muttering among Democrats that the President doesn’t have the faintest idea what to do with the detainees, according to Politico.

The Wall Street Journal isn’t impressed by the prospect of the administration putting its political opponents on trial.

Until now, the U.S. political system has avoided the spectacle of a new Administration prosecuting its predecessor for policy disagreements. This is what happens in Argentina, Malaysia or Peru, countries where the law is treated merely as an extension of political power.

It also wonders where the U-turn on prosecutions came from. 

As recently as Sunday, Rahm Emanuel said no prosecutions were contemplated and now is not a time for “anger and retribution.” Two days later the President disavowed his own chief of staff. Yet nothing had changed…

We pointed out one thing that had changed: Cheney’s interview.