BARACK OBAMA has signed an executive order that shuts down
Guantánamo Bay "as soon as practicable, and no later than 1 year
from the date of this order." Another executive order,
highlighted by the Politico, goes further.   Glenn Greenwald, a
libertarian-leaning constitutional lawyer, is overjoyed: the
president is on track to "meet or actually exceed even the most
optimistic expectations of civil libertarians for what he could
or would do quickly." Indeed, the conventional wisdom after the
election was that President Obama, by his choice of intelligence
advisers and his vote for retroactive immunity for telecom
companies that let the National Security Agency tap phones, had
revealed that he wouldn't actually roll back many of Mr Bush's
war-on-terror reforms. That underestimated the disregard Mr
Obama had for Mr Bush's policies: the neoconservative assumption
that Democrats need to talk and act tough, so as not to be
blamed if things go wrong, is not shared by the new
administration.  (Photo credit: AP)