By Denise Ross

Here’s video of South Dakota’s own John Thune explaining to NBC’s Andrea Mitchell that until President Obama presents a plan for what he wants to do with the prisoners detainees now held at the Guantanamo Bay facility, he really hasn’t got a prayer of getting cooperation from Congress.

Thune says he really wishes Obama would just leave well enough alone.

Maybe they’ll back away from the whole issue of closing Guantanamo in the first place. It’s a $200 million state-of-the-art facility hundreds of miles away from America’s neighborhoods. It’s very safe and secure.

Despite that, the president seems intent on closing it without a plan as to what to do.

And then Thune explains a bit sheepishly that he really did like a lot about the credit card reform bill he voted against, but he just couldn’t go along because some credit card issuing operations in South Dakota might have to “shut down.” And, therefore, jobs would be lost.

But then - and I hadn’t heard this before - Mitchell asks him about a statement he made saying he wouldn’t support a gay Supreme Court nominee. Thune says he just meant that identity politics shouldn’t play into the picking of Supreme Court justices. (It brings to mind the image of Thune trying to bat down a small fire in dry brush and a high wind. Luckily for him, it looks as though there wasn’t gasoline nearby.)

The video’s from Wednesday, but I just saw it and thought it worth passing along even now.

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