Really, Liz Cheney?

Over at Ordinary Gents, Freddie had a ringing take-down of contemporary conservatism. The whole post is refreshingly cathartic, and worth reading in its entirety. One bit, in particular, sprung to mind this morning:

[This], after all, is all you ever hear from conservatives these days. It wasn’t I who sent our soldiers into Iraq, it wasn’t I who left children to drown in New Orleans, it wasn’t I who ordered federal prosecutors fired for failing to politicize prosecution, it wasn’t I who sat idly by as the financial sector plunged itself off of an abyss…. The only consistent definition of conservative I now feel confident in is that a conservative is someone who is not responsible for anything that the Bush administration or Republican congress has done. No, no one is responsible for the Bush administration and its many crimes. No one is responsible for the congressmen who cheered their way along. No one is responsible for the systematic failure of the Republican party machine, which placed such a pathetic, unqualified and ignorant man in the greatest seat of power the word has ever known. No, don’t blame any actual conservatives for conservatism massive failings.

Well, I suppose you have to give Liz Cheney props for stepping up to the plate. From Politico:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s eldest daughter Liz will launch a new group aimed at rallying opposition to the “radical” foreign policy of the Obama administration which it says has succeeded only in undermining the nation’s security.

The new group, Keep America Safe, will make the case against President Barack Obama’s moves to wrench America away from Bush era foreign policy on issues from detaining alleged terrorists at Guantanamo Bay to building a missile shield in Eastern Europe.

[snip]

The former vice president assumed a high profile role last spring publicly contesting the Obama administration’s move to bring its interrogation policy in line with international law – and defending his own legacy. More recently, he’s faded into the background as Liz Cheney, deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs in the Bush years, emerges as the most visible defender of that administration’s foreign policy and the most vocal critic of Obama’s departures from it.

[snip]

Cheney said in an interview that her group’s focus is forward, not back, but that it wouldn’t shrink from defending the still-unpopular Bush era.

“The policies of the Bush administration since Sept. 11 are those policies that kept us safe – there’s no turning away from that legacy at all,” she said.

What's striking is how addle-brained the group's focus will be:

Keep America Safe will focus on issues like troop levels, missile defense, detainees, and interrogation... [Ed. I may have fiddled with that link a little bit.]

Troop levels? Really? Hmmmm... Because maybe going after Obama for troop levels demonstrates a hilarious ignorance of reality. I will leave aside the issue of missile defense, other than to suggest that soothing an increasingly strident relationship with Russia isn't particularly radical.

As far as the treatment of detainees and interrogation are concerned, it simply defies belief that eschewing a practice that has been treated as a crime in our recent history is being described as "radical." Sure, I understand that the daughter of the architect of our horrendous detainee policies has an interest in defending her father. But man is that some morally bankrupt thinking.

Oh, and also? Bill Kristol, you idiot:

“The Left has dozens of organizations and tens of millions of dollars dedicated to undercutting the war on terror,” said Kristol, a seasoned partisan warrior. “The good guys need some help too.”

No, we don't. We have organizations and money dedicated to preventing war crimes and military involvement in countries that are not a threat to us. You aren't the "good guys" when you torture prisoners.