Change?

Now this is disappointing. Very disappointing. I would have thought it was exactly the kind of issue where Obama would have broken with Bush. Not so. Makes you wonder what will happen to the detainees in Guantanamo. Are they going to be brought to the US just so they can languish for years in a similar legal limbo in a domestic supermax? If so, they'll be nostalgic for Cuba.

UPDATE:

More, from David Luban, here. This is a big issue. The idea that something is unreviewable by the courts solely on the executive branch's say so was one the Bush administration's most Orwellian doctrines. As the ACLU"s Wizner points out, under the government's theory in this case, the only place in the U.S. where you are not permitted to talk about the rendition program is a federal courthouse. Now Obama/Holder are invoking the same arguments to cover up Bush's misdeeds. A lot of people have been very surprised by this.

I was not alone when I worried that Eric Holder was a very bad choice for attorney general. But I felt like, given my respect for Obama, I should at least give him the benefit of the doubt. The benefit of my doubt is hereby withdrawn: