We learned on Wednesday that the United States Army is going

to charge Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.
If convicted, Mr. Bergdahl could face life in prison.

This charge hardly came as a surprise to those who served
with Bergdahl; they had immediately suspected him of desertion when he left his
post in Afghanistan in 2009. Both President Obama and Susan Rice surely must
have known all this before (a) Mr. Obama celebrated the deal in the Rose Garden
last May with Bergdahl’s parents and (b) National Security Adviser Susan Race
declared Bergdahl had served his country with “honor and distinctoin.” Only if
you believe desertion and misbehavior before the enemy is honorable and a mark
of moral distinction.

But what made this particular case even more problematic is
that Bergdahl was freed in exchange for five high-value Taliban figures who had
been held captive in Guantanamo Bay. As several outlets and individuals have
pointed out, getting back a soldier who was almost certainly a deserter was
simply a pretext. The main goal of President Obama is to empty Guantanamo Bay.
It is something the president declared he wanted to do during his first day in
office and it’s something he is committed to doing before his last day in
office. Swapping Bergdahl for five Taliban leaders–several of whom are trying
to return to the battlefield so they can kill more Americans–was the convenient
(if explosively contentious) excuse. The Wall Street Journal reminds us that
Mr. Obama told NBC that emptying Gitmo “is going to involve, on occasion,
releasing folks who we may not trust but we can’t convict.”

So we have a president with at least two obsessions: One of
them is attacking the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and weakening
the Jewish State of Israel; the second is to empty Guantanamo Bay and release
terrorists committed to killing as many Americans as possible.

We’ve never seen anything quite like this president.