Republicans have an answer to the thorny problem of where President Barack Obama should put the 245 inmates of Guantanamo Bay – Alcatraz prison, in ultraliberal San Francisco.
Mr Obama issued an executive order last week directing that the controversial detention facility on the island of Cuba will close within a year. But he admitted that he has no plan yet for where to send the prisoners, many of whose home countries refuse to accept them.
Republicans charge that Mr Obama is basking in worldwide adulation for announcing the closure – something President George W Bush desired – without doing the difficult bit.
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"If liberals believe they ought to go, maybe we ought to open Alcatraz," Congressman John Boehner, Republican leader in the House of Representatives, told NBC. "It's very secure."
Perhaps by coincidence, or perhaps not, Alcatraz is in the constituency of Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives and a vocal liberal opponent of Guantanamo.
