President Obama was joined by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and 16 retired generals and admirals in the Oval Office as he signed the executive orders. Doug Mills/The New York TimesFrom The Wall Street Journal:
The president will soon realize that governing involves hard choices.
During his first week as commander in chief, President Barack Obama ordered the closure of Guantanamo Bay and terminated the CIA's special authority to interrogate terrorists.
While these actions will certainly please his base -- gone are the cries of an "imperial presidency" -- they will also seriously handicap our intelligence agencies from preventing future terrorist attacks. In issuing these executive orders, Mr. Obama is returning America to the failed law enforcement approach to fighting terrorism that prevailed before Sept. 11, 2001. He's also drying up the most valuable sources of intelligence on al Qaeda, which, according to CIA Director Michael Hayden, has come largely out of the tough interrogation of high-level operatives during the early years of the war.
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My Comment: In From the Cold's comments on this Wall Street Journal opinion piece are a must read.