We learn that someone has discovered the obvious solution to the Guantanamo dilemma that is roiling the administration: re-brand Guantanamo. Fox News reports:

A Guantanamo Bay Version 2.0 may be in the works. . . Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) said Thursday that he is open to keeping a more transparent Guantanamo facility, complete with more aggressive third party monitors, open beyond the White House January 2010 closure deadline to hold the most dangerous inmates.

This is a superficial solution to a superficial PR problem, which seems to be at the root of the administration’s current woes. I’ve joked that they should rename Guantanamo or bring in a Feng Shui expert, but Alcee’s advice isn’t much more than that. Everyone who has been there or knows the details of its operation understands it is a well-run, professional facility. That’s what Eric Holder said, right? So the problem is the nasty PR based on all the misinformation.

So like a new detergent, roll out “the new and improved Guantanamo!” One must pause at the lunacy at work here, and in some sense the passivity of Obama. If his own attorney general contends the facility is a model operation, why not try to change public opinion and explain what Guantanamo is? And if the answer is that the objections and those positing the objections are irrational and not subject to persuasion or evidence, then one has to wonder why we’re jumping through hoops at all.

It is unclear if the idea originated with Hastings or it is a trial balloon from the administration seeking to escape its self-made predicament. If the latter, it would suggest the administration is looking to end its political travails with a superficial solution. It beats a “real” and very misguided one.