ONLY THE NAMES HAVE CHANGED, TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT:

Civil liberties groups have a wish list for Obama: Rolling back Bush's counter-terrorism policies is a priority, as are closing the Guantanamo prison, stopping military tribunals and curtailing domestic surveillance. (James Oliphant, November 20, 2008, LA Times)

It's called the president's daily brief, or, more informally, the "threat matrix." And it could change the way President-elect Barack Obama views the world and the dangers that exist.

Obama began receiving daily intelligence reports -- the ones given to President Bush -- after the election. They provide a far more detailed look at terrorist threats than he received as a senator or presidential candidate.

"If ever there were proof of the existence of evil in the world, it is in the pages of these reports," former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft once said about the briefings.

Obama and his national security advisors will probably keep those reports in mind as they consider changes to the Bush administration's counter-terrorism policies.

The one thing that everyone who knew him at Harvard agrees about is that he was happy to toss ideology overboard in order to guarantee that his tenure at the Law Review was a success. What is the one thing that would not only blight his presidency but redeem George W. Bush's overnight? Rolling back the WoT measures and then suffering an attack. Now it is certainly a possibility that Mr. Obama is so wedded to the cant of the human rights/civil liberties crowd that he'll risk an attack in order to vindicate extraordinary privacy "rights." but there isn't much in his background to suggest that he's that incautious where his own reputation is concerned.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 20, 2008 9:30 AM