I am now officially disappointed in Barack Obama

It had to happen sooner or later. The new Obama Administration has invoked the dreaded state secrets privilege, saying that a torture lawsuit against the federal government shouldn’t proceed “because even discussing it in court could present a threat to national security and relations with other nations.” It’s a nifty legal tool that the government has in the past used to avoid telling the truth, not to preserve national security.

A Justice Department spokesman, Matt Miller, said the government did not comment on pending litigation, but he seemed to suggest the Obama administration would invoke the privilege more sparingly than its predecessor.

“It is the policy of this administration to invoke the state secrets privilege only when necessary and in the most appropriate cases,” he said, adding that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. had asked for a review of pending cases in which the government had previously asserted a state secret privilege.

“The Attorney General has directed that senior Justice Department officials review all assertions of the State Secrets privilege to ensure that the privilege is being invoked only in legally appropriate situations,” he said. “It is vital that we protect information that, if released, could jeopardize national security.”

The Obama Administration’s position on the state secrets privilege, then, amounts to these two words: “Trust Us.”

You know what? I don’t trust them.

It’s not that I don’t think that President Obama won’t make good on his word to assert the privilege more sparingly than the Bush Administration; I do. But it doesn’t matter. No president — not in a democratic nation, at least — should be able to declare his actions utterly beyond scrutiny. Ever.

There have been proposals to add oversight to assertions of the state secrets privilege — our own Sen. Specter has even co-sponsored a bill to that effect. If Democratic politicians have meant any of their critiques of the Bush Administration in recent years — if they opposed torture out of genuine conviction instead of as a means of bludgeoning the opposition — some version of this bill will pass very quickly. In the meantime, it appears that Barack Obama is just another politician.