Lies, damn lies and Liz Cheney

Ever since last November’s election of President Barack Obama, I’ve used the In Box to advocate for a renewal of the Republican Party.

My argument was and is for a GOP that builds its agenda around ideas and policies that can improve Americans’ lives.

We need a vibrant, thoughtful conservative movement. But so far the renaissance hasn’t happened.

Instead, Republicans have often embraced a virulent and unthinking animosity toward Mr. Obama’s agenda.

Why do I say ‘unthinking’?

Because too often the conservative movement has attacked and voted against ideas that Republican leaders once advocated for themselves.

Republicans pioneered the idea of forming a bipartisan deficit-reduction panel.

When Democrats embraced the idea, GOP lawmakers voted against it.

Republicans supported the idea of urging seniors to do end of life planning with their doctors.

They then attacked the policy — included in early drafts of the health care bill — as ‘death panels.’

Republicans, under the Bush administration, began the national effort to bail out the banks and restore the finance industry.

The Bush White House created “TARP.”

Now those efforts, carried forward by the current White House, are derided as ‘socialism’ and an attack on free market capitalism.

GOP leaders scorned President Obama’s stimulus package, but raced to hoover up as many of the dollars for their districts and pet projects as possible.

Perhaps nowhere is this double-think more painfully obvious than on national security.

Dick and Liz Cheney — the former Vice President and his daughter — have attacked the Obama Administration’s terrorism policies relentlessly.

Dick Cheney condemns the abandonment of so called ‘enhanced interrogation’ techniques — torture, in simple parlance — used against some detainees

He has also sneered at the Obama administration’s plan to close Guantanamo Bay, arguing that the move would make America less safe.

What he neglects to point out is that waterboarding and similar techniques were also rejected by Mr. Obama’s Republican opponent in 2008, Sen. John McCain.

Another uncomfortable fact is that President Bush himself acknowledged in 2007 that “it should be a goal of the nation to shut down Guantanamo.”

Meanwhile, Liz Cheney has attacked plans to use Federal civil courts to try accused terrorists.

In an advertisement last week, her activist group went a step further.

She accused the Justice Department of hiring lawyers who formerly defended Guantanamo detainees, labeling these attorneys ‘the Al Quaeda 7.’

The attack is so reprehensible that many conservatives have condemned it.

But it turns out the Bush Administration also hired a number of attorneys who had formerly defended terror suspects.

And it turns out the Bush Administration tried almost all of the detainees in its custody under Federal civil courts, not military tribunals.

As Ms. Cheney well knows, those trials proceeded without complication and without controversy, resulting in guilty verdicts and lengthy sentences.

So why would the GOP spend so much of the last year attacking the Obama administration for embracing policies that its own leaders once supported?

Why not spend the time developing a new, attractive, positive Contract for America, a proven strategy that won a landslide victory in the 1994 congressional elections?

One possible explanation is the document uncovered by Politico last week, revealing the Republican Party’s internal strategy.

That official RNC document portrayed Mr. Obama as “the Joker” and argued that “fear” would one of the primary methods for winning elections in November 2010.

“What can you sell when you do not have the White House, the House, or the Senate…?” it asks.

The answer: “Save the country from trending toward Socialism!”

According to Politico, the GOP hopes to leverage “extreme negative feelings toward the existing Administration,” triggering “reactionary” and “visceral” responses.

It may or may not be a strategy that will work at the ballot box this year. But how will it help Republicans govern?

What does it tell us about how the GOP would lead our nation through a deep recession, a time of war, and a time of dangerous Federal deficits?

Yes, Americans are uncomfortable with the systemic deficit spending that Mr. Obama is proposing. And we’re not satisfied with many of his policy proposals.

Rather than trot out scurrilous (and hypocritical) attacks, Republicans should come up with sound, workable and appealing alternatives.

Your thoughts? Comment below.