"If They Do That, Then All Hell Breaks Loose"

From Reuters:

One Republican lawmaker said public opposition would escalate sharply if and when the administration formally notified Congress it intends to transfer the prisoners, who come from the highest ranks of the Afghan militant movement. "If they do that, then all hell breaks loose. There's just no way," the lawmaker said on condition of anonymity.

This reminds me very much - indeed, it matches up almost word-for-word - of a similar assertion made during the debate over what to do with Ali Musa Daqduq, when the idea of transferring Daqduq to the United States to face trial by military commission was under consideration.  In that instance, Senator Graham warned against such a solution at least in part on the ground that choosing that option would cause "holy hell ... to break out" in terms of the public reaction. As with the Daqduq scenario, I'm doubtful that the public actually is primed to explode with anger should the action in question be taken, at least not without a fair amount of signalling to the effect that the proposed steps should not be tolerated.   Quotes like this provide such signalling, of course.  Better for the debate to focus instead on the merits of the initiatives in question (and, to be fair, the Reuters piece cited above does include a number of merits-focused critiques of the proposed prisoner transfer).