Day: August 17, 2010

Remember how the Republican Party abandoned its principles during the Bush years — the hundreds of billions they borrowed from communist China to pay for government programs and war supplementals, because, as Dick Cheney said, “Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter”; remember their disastrous invasion and occupation of Iraq, followed by their 180-degree flip-flop in 2003 on their firm opposition to nation building in 2000; their corrupt and incompetent fiscal mismanagement; their passing a law in March 2005 to force the federal government to intervene in the Terri Schiavo end-of-life case, a bill Bush rushed back to Washington from his Easter vacation to sign; the legal shenanigans deployed by top GOP officials, including, among many others, Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales as well as George Bush and Dick Cheney in order to avoid responsibility for their own malfeasance and ineptitude; and on and on?

Now, even though they’re not yet back in power, Republicans are already tossing conservative principles overboard. In an effort to pander to their tea-bagger base, they are in a full-court press to force the government to intervene in the construction of the Park 51 Islamic center near New York City Hall, also known as the (not at) Ground Zero (not a) mosque.

But don’t take my word for it — I’m the sort of partisan progressive-liberal Democrat that makes Glenn Beck cry like a little baby. Here is a conservative, Josh Barro, writing for the National Review’s website, a gold-plated bastion of right wing propaganda and spin, calling out his conservative brothers and sisters on their willingness to shove principles aside to stop the dang mosque:

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