The quibble I have with rendition & the Obama administration in particular is that I'd like to see them demonstrate their committment to avoiding countries with seriously bad torture track records (Syria, Egypt, Morocco, etc.)  To say that we will not render suspects to those countries, period.  That would be a huge improvement over Clinton (and Bush, goes without saying).  But here is the policy right now:

Monterey Herald

QUESTION: Could you talk to us a little bit about the Obama rendition program? You said that you'll continue doing it, but your focus will be on, you know, making sure that nothing bad happens to the prisoners once they are handed over. That's always been the U.S. policy. How will what you all do be different? And, can you talk to us a little bit about the problem that we're seeing more and more, which is people who have been rendered to other countries and released and are returning to the battlefield? And can you tell us if any prisoners are ever going back to Gitmo while it's still open? If not, where they're going.

DIR. PANETTA: All right, let me start -- (chuckles).

DIR. PANETTA: Please, thank you. (Chuckles.) First of all, on the rendition issue: Obviously, the executive order that was issued by the President sets, you know, the ground rules for dealing with that issue. Number one, we are obligated to follow the Army Field Manual, and we will do that. Secondly, we are closing black sites, and we are doing that. And thirdly, rendition is still permitted, but obviously -- and it's been used in the past to obviously send people to countries where there are jurisdictional issues for purposes of trying individuals. If we render someone, we are obviously going to seek assurances from that country that their human rights are protected and that they are not mistreated. And we are going to make very sure that that does not happen. Well, I guess, you know, A, make sure, first of all, the kind of countries that we render will tell us an awful lot about that, number one. Number two, I think diplomatically we just have to make sure that we have a presence to ensure that that does not happen. [emphasis supplied]

On this issue I am willing to wait.  They will eventually make their policy clearer.  But what Panetta says here is not different from what Clinton-era officials said.  You can't render to a country like Egypt and truly expect the human rights of the detainee to be preserved.  If you can, I'd like to know how.  To render to Egypt and expect a non-torture result seems like Einstein's definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

I hope we can show Obama that our eyes are wide-open now and our expectations are higher - we know enough about rendition to call him out if he restores aspects of the rendition to torture programs of the past.  If he is looking simply for plausible deniability on the issue of rendition to torture, he doesn't have a lot of room to move.  Because we know - rendering to Egypt is BS.  We have heard it all before.  If he does that, he will draw a lot of fire.