Meet the new boss

I hate to recall a manufactured controversy from the campaign, but after reading this, I keep thinking, "talk about lipstick on a pig."

Breaking a key promise from his campaign, President Barack Obama is expected to announce Friday the return of military commission trials for a small number of terrorism suspects. Obama had previously promised to abolish them.

The tribunals, often criticized as overly protective of state secrets and willing to accept evidence obtained while defendants were allegedly tortured, were suspended mere hours after Obama took office.

Many organizations expected the move to be a death knell for the system, launched by the Bush administration.

But, it was not.

Unnamed administration officials told the Associated Press on Thursday that the revived commissions will afford greater legal rights to prisoners by barring evidence obtained under coercion or torture and restricting how hearsay evidence is applied.

When someone spots some substantive differences between this administration and the tragic disaster that it replaced, please let me know.