Buried on page 12...

When Obama issued his order to close Guantanamo within the year I wrote that, like most of his words, his actions that fail to back them up are more telling.

Yesterday, in federal court, a case on extraordinary rendition was being argued.

The judicial panel inquired of Douglas Letter, the attorney for the government, whether "there was anything material that had happened" that might have caused the Justice Department to have changed it's stance on Government secrecy.

The issue before the court is that the Bush administration policy that there were certain issues regarding rendition that could not be argued in court because simply to mention them in public would be dangerous to national security.

You might remember this was a major theme of Obama's campaign.

Here was the nexus of 2 of his key issues: 1) rendition (the act of sending US prisoners to overseas allies for "questioning" awar from rules the US observes; and 2) Secrecy of the government, and specifically the executive branch, i.e. the government.

Mr> Letter's answer to Judge Mary Schroeder was "No, your honor".

The Judge responded "The change in administration has no bearing?" in somewhat shocked disbelief.

Letter once again said "No, your honor".

And there it was. Change you can believe in...