A Second Look at Obama's Executive Orders

I bashed Obama recently for his executive orders, but maybe I jumped the gun a bit. That's one of the problems commenting on news stories right after they are first reported. Sometimes you don't get a complete picture, and can end up looking like an idiot after the full story comes out. The LA Times reports that the controversial CIA rendition program will continue, and may even expand under the Obama administration. In addition

One provision in one of Obama’s orders appears to preserve the CIA's ability to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects as long as they are not held long-term.

As the quote above indicates, the CIA will continue to be able to run secret interrogation facilities. If this report is correct, it is a huge difference from what was reported earlier. Preserving rendition and the CIA's ability to carry out secret interrogations indicates that the Obama administration is much more realistic about national security than previous news reports suggested. 

I attacked the president in an earlier post, for the idiocy of thinking that an intelligence organization that operates in secret shouldn't be allowed to have secret interrogation facilities. But apparently he doesn't think that at all. I have no problem with merely closing a few long-term secret prisons. Given this latest report, it is also possible that Obama really isn't going to tie the CIA's hands by restricting it to military interrogation procedures. Maybe most of his national security executive orders are actually cosmetic changes for public relations purposes, as some suggested earlier. Let's hope so.