So, the Republicans stated at their convention this week that they want to renew America and themselves. I’m not sure how one renews America by electing the same people and party that we’ve had for the last eight years, but I have to admit that the Republicans have definitely changed their opinions on certain issues.

One of the GOP’s strong arguments against an Obama presidency is that he has no military experience. Fair enough, but that didn’t seem to be a problem when President Bush (a part-timer in the Air National Guard when he wasn’t AWOL) was attempting reelection against Democrat John Kerry, a candidate who had been awarded the Purple Heart for wounds sustained during battle. And it also didn’t mean much that Bush’s vice president Dick Cheney had never been in the military, nor his political advisor Karl Rove.

The Republicans have also apparently rethought their stance on infidelity. When Bill Clinton had an affair with Monica Lewinski, they spent millions of taxpayers’ dollars dragging him through the impeachment mud, but nobody seems to mind that candidate McCain began a romantic relationship with his present wife Cindy before he was divorced from his first wife, who also happened to be the mother of his three oldest children.

Since the invasion of Afghanistan, the Republicans have insisted that torture of suspected Islamist terrorists is a necessity and American right, yet Fred Thompson in his speech condemned North Vietnamese treatment of Senator McCain at the Hanoi Hilton. The Republicans have called it cowardly and in direct opposition of the Geneva Convention. I guess this change in Republican thinking will be welcomed by those incarcerated at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

The Republicans have always accused Democrats and Liberals of having no backbone and forever changing their minds on the issues, but what I heard this week at the Republican National Convention takes flip-flopping to a new level.