The New York Times printed a major editorial presenting a guideline for Barack Obama to “restore our good name” in the world community, starting with the closing of the Gitmo prison.  Clearly, the good name at issue is that of America, and the restoration is in the eyes everyone, Americans as well as the rest of the world.

Americans have watched in horror as President Bush has trampled on the Bill of Rights and the balance of power. The list of abuses that President-elect Barack Obama must address is long: once again require the government to get warrants to eavesdrop on Americans; undo scores of executive orders and bill-signing statements that have undermined the powers of Congress; strip out the unnecessary invasions of privacy embedded in the Patriot Act; block new F.B.I. investigative guidelines straight out of J. Edgar Hoover’s playbook.

Even with all those demands, there is one thing Mr. Obama must do quickly to begin to repair this nation’s image and restore its self-respect: announce a plan for closing Mr. Bush’s outlaw prison at Guantánamo Bay.

The focus creates an odd juxtaposition with a post by Radley Balko the other day following Judge Richard Leon’s release of the Boumediene Five upon finding insufficient evidence to hold them for prosecution.  Judge Leon found the evidence “sufficient to hold them for intelligence purposes,” but nothing more.  No one apparently noticed that they had been held for 7 years before Judge Leon ordered their release.

Radley focused on a National Review piece by Andrew McCarthy, SDNY prosecutor turned conservative pundit.   Like the Times, Andrew was disgusted with the handling of these Algerians, particularly the Justice Department’s abandonment of position that these “enemy combatants” were planning to blow up the American Embassy in Sarajevo, as the President how loudly announced so long ago.  

It seems pretty clear that the Bush administration did not help matters here.  Nearly seven years ago, the President publicly claimed the Algerians were planning a bomb attack on the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo.  Last month, however, the Justice Department suddenly informed the Court that it was no longer relying on that information.  We’ve seen this sort of thing happen too many times over the last seven years, and the effect can only be to reduce the confidence of the court and the public that the government is in command of the relevant facts and can be trusted to make thoughtful decisions.

And therein lies the difference between the two concerns.  McCarthy’s criticism of the Bush administration stems from how it undermines public confidence in the government, particularly the Executive.  This, Andrew opines, leaves the public to think that the government “can’t be trusted” because the government can’t be trusted.  Ironically, Andrew’s problem isn’t with the reality of the situation, but that people will perceive the reality accurately. 

What would be wrong with this?  From McCarthy’s point of view, a loss of confidence in the trustworthiness of the government would impair the government’s ability to do whatever it likes, law be damned.  This is what happens to people when they place their bets with the government rather than the people.  They see the government as being superior to the Constitution, the law, the United States, and grow angry when the government gets caught behaving poorly, or stupidly as here, because it diminishes the government in the eyes of the world.  Sometimes the government deserves to be seen as untrustworthy, because it has been untrustworthy. 

The idea is to correct what went very wrong, rather than to conceal it to protect the image of government as always right. 

While both the Times and the National Review critically address the same scenario, they could not reach more different conclusions.  McCarthy’s answer is protecting the image of government in the face of engaging in a terrible wrong, The Times’ answer is to stop engaging in a terrible wrong.  Wouldn’t it be better to be worthy of trust, Andrew?