Obama and the Final Delusion

Conservative columnists like Charles Krauthammer have been consoling themselves with a final delusion that the Obama administration would continue the policies of George Bush

Except for Richard Nixon, no president since Harry Truman has left office more unloved than George W. Bush. Truman's rehabilitation took decades. Bush's will come sooner. Indeed, it has already begun. The chief revisionist? Barack Obama. Vindication is being expressed not in words but in deeds -- the tacit endorsement conveyed by the Obama continuity-we-can-believe-in transition. It's not just the retention of such key figures as Defense Secretary Bob Gates or Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy Geithner, who, as president of the New York Fed, has been instrumental in guiding the Bush financial rescue over the past year. It's the continuity of policy

But the Bush Legacy Project has already had a bad day today, and it still isn't noon.

On Day Two of his administration, President Barack Obama began overhauling U.S.
treatment of terror suspects, signing orders to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center, review military trials of suspects and ban the harshest interrogation methods.

MSN views the closing of Guantanamo as the most important item here, but by now it should be evident that mandating that interrogators follow the Army Field Manual and banning torture (in other words, "the harshest interrogration methods) is more important.

Banning practices defined as torture is one more indication that the Obama administration is going to treat torture as a crime.

Major figures in the Bush administration might find that "their legacy" includes defending themselves against criminal charges.