I feel a bit foolish that I had to travel to Andrew Sullivan’s blog on the east coast to find this op ed in a paper less than 100 miles from where is live but here it is.
The party’s over for betrayed Republican

As of today, after 25 years, I am no longer a Republican.
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My problem is this: I believe in principles and ideals which my party has systematically discarded in the last 10 years.

My Republican Party was the party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Barry Goldwater, and George H.W. Bush. It was a party of honesty and accountability. It was a party of tolerance, and practicality and honor. It was a party that faced facts and dealt with reality, and that crafted common-sense solutions to problems based on the facts as they were, not as we wished them to be, or even worse, as we made them up. It was a party that told the truth, even when the truth came hard. And now, it is none of those things.

Fifty years from now, the Republican Party of this era will be judged by how we provided for the nation’s future on three core issues: how we led the world on the environment, how we minded the business of running our country in such a way that we didn’t go bankrupt, and whether we gracefully accepted our place on the world’s stage as its only superpower. Sadly, we have built the foundation for dismal failure on all three counts. And we’ve done it in such a way that we shouldn’t be surprised if neither the American people nor the world ever trusts us again.

Like many traditional Republicans James Chaney feels betrayed.

My party has repeatedly ignored, discarded and even invented science to suit its needs, most spectacularly as to global warming. We have an opportunity and the responsibility to lead the world on this issue, but instead we’ve chosen greed, shortsightedness and deliberate ignorance.

We have mortgaged the country’s fiscal future in a way that no Democratic Congress or administration ever did, and to justify the tax cuts that brought us here, we’ve simply changed the rules. I matured as a Republican believing that uncontrolled deficit spending is harmful and irresponsible; I still do. But the party has yet to explain to me why it’s a good thing now, other than to say “… because we say so.”

Our greatest failure, though, has been in our role as superpower. This world needs justice, democracy and compassion, and as the keystone of those things, it needs one thing above all else: truth.

The theocons and neocons don’t represent the Republican party much less America. They don’t represent to proverbial “moral majority” anymore than the extreme left represents the “moral majority”.

Let’s say–theoretically, of course–that your country is run by the dregs of society. Dregs who look out for number one, and don’t actually give a fig about you and me. Dregs who waste our hard-earned money every chance they get, and spend most of their time and energy ensuring they get re-elected every 2, 4, or 6 years (as the case may be).

Now let’s say some court decision is made…I don’t know…giving them the right to take away the home your grandfather built. The home your father grew up in, and the home your dear, sweet, apple pie-baking grandmother lives in. She lives on a tight budget, but still manages to spoil her grandchildren when they come to visit her. Every 4th of July the whole family gathers at Grandma’s house for a barbecue dinner after the parade. The flag waves on the flagpole your grandfather put up after your uncle died in Vietnam.

But one year, the government comes along and tells your grandmother to pack her things. Her house is standing in the way of progress. A company worth billions of dollars needs to build their new headquarters in the very spot your dad buried his pet dog when he was 12 years old. They can’t build 20 miles away on the land a farmer is trying to sell because he can’t make a living on his farm. Nope, they need Grandma’s house.

Your grandmother packs her things, takes the market value settlement, and tries to find a new home for herself. Of course, it’s hard to find an equivalent home, because her house was 50 years old and most new homes cost much more. So Grandma settles into a small apartment in a senior living community. Her grandkids can’t visit as much, because there just isn’t the room. Plus some of the seniors don’t care for the noise kids make.

On the day the bulldozers move in to tear the old house down, your cousin puts a flag on Grandpa’s flagpole and sets it on fire. It’s his small way of protesting against a government that would rip an old lady out of her home…some old men and women in black robes let it happen…some politicians let it happen. No one stopped it. So the flag of the country burns in silent protest. And your cousin is arrested for it.

Fair, huh?