"Trust Me"

Those are two words you never want to hear coming from George W. Bush's mouth. There's a damning new report showing that many, perhaps most of the detainees still held at Guantanamo Bay weren't members of al Qaeda at all, despite the President's assurances that they were. One of the hallmark features of the current Bush administration is its insistence that those boring old rules about due process simply no longer apply. What is he so afraid of? Can't we fight terrorists and still obey the law?

In George Bush's America, transparency in the government doesn't matter, because he doesn't make mistakes. We're just supposed to trust him. He's our president. In a rare moment of clarity, Ronald Reagan once said, "Trust, but verify." I'd like to trust my president, but I don't.