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.<\/p>\n
My argument was and is for a GOP that builds its agenda around ideas and policies that can improve Americans’ lives.<\/p>\n
We need a vibrant, thoughtful conservative movement. But so far the renaissance hasn’t happened.<\/p>\n
Instead, Republicans have often embraced a virulent and unthinking animosity toward Mr. Obama’s agenda. <\/p>\n
Why do I say ‘unthinking’?<\/p>\n
Because too often the conservative movement has attacked and voted against ideas that Republican leaders once advocated for themselves.<\/p>\n
Republicans pioneered the idea of forming a bipartisan deficit-reduction panel.<\/p>\n
When Democrats embraced the idea, GOP lawmakers voted against it.<\/p>\n
Republicans supported the idea of urging seniors to do end of life planning with their doctors.<\/p>\n
They then attacked the policy — included in early drafts of the health care bill — as ‘death panels.’<\/p>\n
Republicans, under the Bush administration, began the national effort to bail out the banks and restore the finance industry. <\/p>\n
The Bush White House created “TARP.” <\/p>\n
Now those efforts, carried forward by the current White House, are derided as ‘socialism’ and an attack on free market capitalism.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Perhaps nowhere is this double-think more painfully obvious than on national security.<\/p>\n
Dick and Liz Cheney — the former Vice President and his daughter — have attacked the Obama Administration’s terrorism policies relentlessly.<\/p>\n
Dick Cheney condemns the abandonment of so called ‘enhanced interrogation’ techniques — torture, in simple parlance — used against some detainees<\/p>\n
He has also sneered at the Obama administration’s plan to close Guantanamo Bay, arguing that the move would make America less safe.<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
Another uncomfortable fact is that President Bush himself acknowledged in 2007 that “it should be a goal of the nation to shut down Guantanamo.”<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Liz Cheney has attacked plans to use Federal civil courts to try accused terrorists.<\/p>\n
In an advertisement last week, her activist group went a step further.<\/p>\n
She accused the Justice Department of hiring lawyers who formerly defended Guantanamo detainees, labeling these attorneys ‘the Al Quaeda 7.’<\/p>\n