Righting the wrongs of eight years

Deep inside the national newspapers, overwhelmed by news of the economic crisis, was the story of the 17 Chinese Muslims who have been detained at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, since 2002.

The placement of the stories might serve as a metaphor for the state of things as the country turns toward 2009 and a new administration.

The legacy of the past eight years of open-ended wars and deficits that no longer fit on the deficit clock in Times Square, the financial crisis, all of those things that can be calibrated, will land with a crash in the newly occupied Oval Office.

Off to the side will be the subtler but arguably more dangerous deficits also left behind: the quiet assaults on human rights and civil liberties that have become so painfully familiar to us during the past eight years. No immediate or easy measure of this damage exists. But it is real.

The hope, of course, is that the legal system still works and will purge these injustices. The good news is the broad executive powers that the Bush administration asserted in waging war have been steadily whittled away by the courts.

Most recently, Federal District Court Judge Ricardo Urbina ruled that the 17 detainees -- whom the government had determined were not enemy combatants -- should be released to the custody of American families who had agreed to take them in.

At press time, the government was still battling the ruling. Thank God, time is running out on this administration.

National Catholic Reporter October 17, 2008