Up until last week, Americans Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal had been held in an Iranian prison since July 2009. The two arrived back in the United States and made clear that they saw their 781 days in captivity as nothing more than the symptom of spiteful diplomatic relations between Iran and the U.S. According to Bauer, whenever they complained about conditions, the Iranian guards “immediately remind us of comparable conditions at Guantanamo Bay.”

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told the European Parliament Tuesday that the Obama Administration really is trying to close the much-maligned U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay “as quickly as possible, recognizing that we face substantial pressure.” Having so far elapsed the intended close date, they promise they are still working on it and that they continue working until all of the prisoners are processed or moved or until someone else gets voted into office.

The State Department’s favorite whistleblower organization, Wikileaks, has taken yet another holiday to launch a document dump, this time on the secrets of America’s military base on Guantanamo Bay. Like every Wikileak, this one has many in the media, including Bill O’Reilly, calling for the government to press charges on Julian Assange and company, but the group appears to have found an unlikely ally: Bernie Goldberg.

Many of the Left are furious with President Obama’s to renew trials at Guantanamo Bay, a clear sign that he’s not, as promised, closing the prison. Everyone’s looking for an explanation and, as Rush Limbaugh pointed out, the Associated Press has one. He’s accusing them of laying the blame on “Republican Congress members” in this article. As for Limbaugh himself, he has his own explanation. He explained today that he thinks the White House is keeping Gitmo open because “they’re going to need a place to put all of us.”

On today’s Your World with Neil Cavuto, host Neil Cavuto may have been on vacation but don’t worry, Karl Rove‘s dislike of President Obama never goes on vacation and Rove brought it with him as guest on the Fox News show. This time, after discussing Obama’s campaign strategy for 2012 and potential common ground on tax reform, Rove got really hot under the collar on the issue of closing Guantanamo Bay.

Though President Barack Obama has promised to close Guantanamo Bay’s detention center, the issue has largely been overshadowed by other stories in the news lately. Today, Mother Jones‘ Nick Baumann writes that a group of news organizations may be close to suing the Obama administration over press restrictions surrounding Gitmo.

President Barack Obama has been under criticism for some time now about the continued functioning of the US prison at Guantánamo Bay, more than a year after he passed an executive order to shut it down. But while some are decrying the lack of follow-through on that campaign promise, Charles Krauthammer is just jealous he doesn’t have the fancy lifestyle of the average Gitmo detainee.

Who would’ve thought in the early 2000s that Bill O’Reilly and the president of the ACLU would agree on anything? The organization has expressed disapproval of President Barack Obama‘s policies and, well, that’s where the agreements end. But O’Reilly had ACLU member E. Christopher Murray on the Factor to explain the ACLU’s grievances with Obama– mainly, that he has yet to fulfill some of his campaign promises.

The The Times in London is reporting that Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, a former top aide to Colin Powell, has claimed that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were all aware that many prisoners in Guantanamo Bay were entirely innocent but left them there anyway. The accusations were made in a document that The Times has obtained.

As Joe Lieberman‘s recent gambit on the health care bill shows, the senator from Connecticut is not afraid to take unpopular — though often effective — stands. Yesterday, on This Week With George Stephanopoulos, Lieberman came to the defense of America’s detainment center at Guantanamo Bay, which he acknowledged had a “bad reputation,” but called a “humane” place. Video after the jump:

“It is of utmost importance to me that those who were responsible for the attacks of 9/11 face a court,” expresses the mother of a fallen firefighter. This is the sentiment throughout a new video making the rounds online in which family members of 9/11 victims voice their support for federal trials of terrorism suspects. It’s a far cry from the “off with their heads!” heat of Saturday’s NY Post, but this measured and moving video can be seen inside.

Attorney General Eric Holder‘s decision to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others detained at Guantanamo Bay to trial at a New York City courthouse was received with mixed reaction Friday, both on the political spectrum and in the media world. As a service to you, let’s review where this story has been and where its likely to go, at least in the world of the opinion press.

It’s surprising to many that the detention center at Guantanamo Bay has a library, but it does — and an extensive one at that.

When pan-Arab newspaper Dar Al-Hayat asked the librarian at Guantanamo Bay what the most-requested books were, this is what they found: