Will Manning become Obama’s Gitmo?

After Bush, Obama was a breath of fresh air. A man who seemed smart, rational and decent. Of all these qualities the last is the clincher. Decent. That’s what you want from a leader. You want a decent man. A man who bears witness to the basic tenets that his country was founded on. A man who believes in that great universal truth — that all men are equal and should be treated as such.

Obama seemed to have that. When a man like Reagan said, “America is a shining city on a hill, a beacon of light to freedom-loving people everywhere”, you didn’t really believe him. But when Obama says that stuff, we believe him.

Which is why it is a tragedy that Bradley Manning is sitting in solitary confinement being subject to harsh (possibly inhuman) treatment. This is not the Obama poster we put on the wall.

Slowly the world is waking up to this. One by one of the big newspapers in America is starting to raise their voice against the treatment of Manning. Members of Obama’s administration are speaking out. PJ Crowley, the State Department spokesperson, has resigned over the issue. And it is plain to see why. No matter your stance on WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, the crime that Manning may have committed, his treatment is an act against decency.

Just as the images of prisoners in orange overalls and hoods came to haunt the Bush administration, the spotty face of Private Manning could become the enduring image of the Obama administration. And that would be a horrible thing for a man who we thought was decent.