The trick’s as old as the five-day workweek. Dump your worst news on Friday afternoon after 5. It’ll end up in Saturday’s papers (the lowest readership of the week) and will get brief mention on the network newscasts (which have few viewers on Fridays — especially in the summer). Sadly the “we’re gonna change the way Washington works” Obama Administration knows the game too well.

And so at 5:18 Friday afternoon the Washington Post broke the story: The White House will decree by executive fiat that the President may hold terrorism suspects. If that sounds like a broken promise, it is — sort of. Obama has been trying to close the military prison at Guantanamo and fulfill his campaign promise since taking office. The problem is he can’t do it without Congress and both Democrats and Republicans on the Hill have blocked him from doing so.

Now the Administration is doing exactly what candidate Obama harshly criticized former President Bush for in order to close Gitmo — someday. Here’s the thinking behind it: By using an executive order to claim the power to hold suspects essentially forever without so much as a court hearing, the Obama Administration will be able to buy time to work with Congress to find a way to close Gitmo and transfer or try the prisoners still there. The Post says the thinking is an executive order can be rescinded and therefore Obama can still keep his promises.

Still the Friday dump (albeit in an exclusive report by the Post and a new nonprofit investigative journalism organization Pro Publica) is a sure sign that the Administration would rather do this unpleasant business with less than full scrutiny. Even though some civil liberties groups apparently approve of the approach, fearing a much worse outcome if Congress caves on terrorism fears and insists on Gitmo staying open and active, this plan will surely NOT please the netroots. What happened to the guy who was going to respect the separation of powers? And conservatives will have a field day with the “see Bush was right” line of attack. For good reason.

To be sure this whole mess is incredibly complicated and filled with landmines for the President. The Friday leak is likely a trial balloon to see how bad the reaction is. Tried and true, yes. But that doesn’t make it right.