It wasn't so long ago that Barack Obama saw paths around many of the civil-liberty dilemmas that President Bush faced when he launched a war on al-Qaeda around the world. The freshman Senator from Illinois believed, and often claimed, that the White House could and should have avoided the shame of Guantánamo Bay, resisted the urge to engage in torture and shunned domestic eavesdropping.
Such easy exits may be harder to come by now that Obama is preparing to take over as Commander in Chief. Over the past eight years, the Bush Administration has erected a new array of military detention...