Magically Better

Surely the best thing about the "intellectual elite" and the in-the-bag media having Their Guy in the White House is that they get to rewrite history to make themselves feel better:

Many human rights activists condemned rendition during the Bush administration, arguing that the government either intentionally transferred individuals to countries so that they would be tortured, or that it could not guarantee the safety of detainees once they were transferred to other countries.

Before-Human Rights Watch, a very respected and passionate defender of civil liberty, was one of the most vocal critics of the CIA's rendition program. In fact, Human Rights Watch prepared a comprehensive document that reports incidents of alleged torture of rendered individuals.

After-Now that the L.A. Times reports that rendition will continue during the Obama administration, Human Rights Watch has apparently altered its position. According to Tom Malinowski, the organization's "Washington advocacy director," the risk of torture and other abuses does not mandate the prophylactic cessation of rendition. Instead "Under limited circumstances, there is a legitimate place" for renditions, said Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "What I heard loud and clear from the president's order was that they want to design a system that doesn't result in people being sent to foreign dungeons to be tortured -- but that designing that system is going to take some time."