The party I was a proud member of and still claim as my political home.
When Lieberman abandons the principles of his party-because of his beliefs-somehow that is OK. When a moderate Republican says I can’t stand what the party I served has morphed into-that is an act of treason.
John Cole probably has an excellent summary of the absurdity that is today’s “real Republicans”:
I have to admit to being surprised that the right seems to not only have instinctively rushed to defend torture (when, of course, they are not busy insisting that it isn’t torture), but now they are attempting to shift the debate into one in which we discuss the relative merits of torture (look at all the good intel I got while drowning this guy!) while bringing in the lawyers (I guess Andy McCarthy has moved on from Obama’s birth certificate) to make sure that their legal behinds are covered.
Considering what they have done with virtually every other aspect of the Bush years, I honestly expected them to do what they did with the trillions of dollars of spending and debt that happened with a Republican congress and a Republican President Bush- first, pretend it didn’t happen, then after being forced to acknowledge it did happen, claim that everyone was doing it and blame the Democrats and scream about Murtha and Barney Frank, and when that didn’t work, just pretend that it was “other” Republicans who aren’t “real conservatives” (Move along, these aren’t the wasteful spenders you are looking for) while ranting about earmarks. That is what they did with spending, I figured they would do it again with torture.
But they didn’t and they aren’t. Instead, they are mobilizing and going balls to the wall in defense of sadism. It is really quite amazing, and a testament to just how sick and detestable and rotten to the core the Republican party has become.
Now that is not to say I support the rationale that any good can come from a witchhunt or show trials. Ford pardoned Nixon for a reason-because he needed to move on to a new day.
At some point-Obama is going to have to face down the strident voices of the left-just as the Republicans should face down their own wackos-and move on. So far neither side seems willing to do so.
But they still have the gall to think they are somehow different from one another.