Answer: lying with a straight face. That’s his outstanding political skill. The most recent example concerns the Declaration of Independence. You remember:
 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed . . .

 
Note that it is all men  who are created equal and who have unalienable rights, not just citizens of Britain’s American colonies of the 18th century. All men. (Yes, I know that the Declaration is not a legal document.)

So what does the Declaration have to do with Obama? Well, before he became president, he attacked the existence of the Guantánamo prison because it was "a legal black hole" designed to prevent access to the US federal courts and to prevent the exercise of legal rights by those imprisoned there forever (especially habeas corpus , enshrined in the Constitution). Hence, (pre-presidential) Obama was happy with the Supremes’ decision in Boumediene v. Bush  where the Supremes said that detainees at Guantánamo had the right to a habeas corpus hearing in federal court. (All men.)

How things have changed. Under president Obama, the Dept. of Justice argued in court that while prisoners taken to Guantánamo have the right to a habeas corpus hearing, those taken to Bagram AFB in Afghanistan do not (i.e., the DOJ has taken up Bush’s position on indefinite detention). Obama is happy with a federal appeals court decision that Bagram is different from Guantánamo and therefore prisoners in Bagram have no habeas corpus rights. (Some men?) What is the difference between Guantánamo and Bagram? Location. See Glenn Greenwald’s article for more details.

So now we have another instance of major lying by Obama about his love of civil liberties. Which is it, hope or change?