As President-elect Barack Obama prepares to protect our national security as commander-in-chief, we should hope his policies will be a radical departure from his campaign promises.

In his exit interviews, when asked what advice he would give the incoming president, President George W. Bush is encouraging Mr. Obama to remember his most solemn obligation is to protect the American people. The president who has kept us from being attacked since 9/11 is calling on the next president to be equally vigilant against the ongoing terrorist threat.

Mr. Obama won the Democratic nomination by running to Hillary Clinton’s left on national security. He did more than denounce the Iraq War. He called for habeas corpus rights to be given to foreign terrorists, called for meeting face-to-face with the leaders of countries that support terrorism, called for strident national-security measures enacted after 9/11 to be withdrawn, voted against funding troops in combat in Iraq, said the troop surge was doomed to failure, promised to remove all troops immediately, and called for closing Guantanamo Bay.

At the time, Mrs. Clinton called his views naïve and Vice President-elect Joseph Biden said that his vote against troop funding could cost American lives. But it won Mr. Obama plaudits from the far-left that dominated the Democratic nominating process.

Since then, Mr. Obama has given indications this may have just been politically-expedient rhetoric. He has appointed Mrs. Clinton as secretary of state, kept Robert Gates as secretary of defense, and may keep in place President Bush’s plan to gradually withdrawal military forces from Iraq.

What about the remaining national-security issues?

Will Mr. Obama close Guantanamo Bay? What will he do with the hundreds of hardened terrorists there? Can he name a single member of Congress who wants to have those terrorists sent to their district to be imprisoned, creating a tempting terrorist target in their own backyard? Continued...