Among the sure-fire crowd pleasing utterances at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) are some real gems. The ‘Obama’s Teleprompter Dependant’ meme has clearly been the low hanging fruit. The irony of it being repeated by numerous speakers standing before a teleprompter has been lost on those in attendance, but that’s how political conventions are — those addressing the CPAC crowds are there to motivate, to tell the assembled what they want to hear.

But the teleprompter ribbing is benign, if not misrepresented, compared to the ‘Obama’s Weak on National Security’ slights. It was a given that it would be employed, but you had to know that when Liz Cheney introduced her father to an adoring crowd on day one, Feb. 18, that scrutiny of Obama’s national security policies would be front and center at CPAC 2010.

Again, like the teleprompter meme, the fact that the father/daughter national security nonsense about Obama doesn’t have any basis in reality was happily overlooked by the crowd.

Fresh off the former Vice President’s latest admission of war crimes, he was greeted with chants of “Run, Dick, Run!” Adele M. Stan observed in a Feb. 19 Alternet post that the self-proclaimed conservatives in the audience must have short memories. Considering the Bush/Cheney record on the principles of limited government and strict adherence to the Constitution — supposedly prized by CPAC attendees — he should have been booed off the stage.

Why wasn’t he? Stan explains (emphasis added):

…there are priorities more important to this crowd than its leaders’ stated principles — priorities that Cheney represents despite his many transgressions against the dogma of the Tea Party nation. Since his departure from the Old Executive Office Building, Cheney has repeatedly sounded two assertions: that torture and other transgressions of human rights keep Americans safe from terrorism; and that President Obama and his administration are incompetent and cowardly in the arena of national security. Those two notions are easily distilled to: torture is patriotic, and Obama is an idiot or something even worse — a tyrant who wants to take away our right to torture. On those two ideas, virtually all the speakers at today’s event could agree.

This is exactly the reason Mickey Edwards — Five time CPAC Chairman, former Congressman, and all-around prominent conservative — wasn’t there to hear Cheney speak.

When asked if he was going to attend CPAC 2010, Edwards posted his response, Feb. 18, at The Atlantic (hat-tip to NewsJunkiePost for the link).

No, I’m not going to CPAC. And, truth be told, most of the folks there wouldn’t want me there. They wouldn’t think I’m a conservative; many wouldn’t think Barry Goldwater was a conservative; many, had this been three decades ago, might have been seeking a “true” conservative to run against Ronald Reagan…

Stop at CPAC today and you will find rooms full of ardent, zealous, fervent young men and women who believe the government should be allowed to torture (we condemned people at Nuremberg for doing that), who believe the government should be able to lock people up without charges and hold them indefinitely (something Henry VIII agreed was a proper exercise of government authority). Who believe the government should be able to read a citizen’s mail and listen in on a citizen’s phone calls, all without a warrant (the Constitution of course prohibits searches without a warrant, but nobody cares less about the Constitution than some of today’s ersatz conservatives).

He was wise to stay away. The attitudes Edwards credits for his staying at home were on display on the second day of the conference.

Bob Barr, former Libertarian presidential candidate, had a run-in with pro-torture CPAC goers during a security vs. liberties panel discussion. Check out the response from the crowd when Barr insisted that “water boarding is torture.”

This has been portrayed by media outlets as Barr having been “booed,” but I’m pretty sure I heard a few supportive voices in the audience. Perhaps, this could be an encouraging sign for Edwards, that there may be some rational conservatives in attendance. However, that contingent is a decided minority at CPAC 2010.

Far more prominent is the reactionary, regressive impulse, lamented within Edward’s letter; no doubt, that external image will be solidified when Glenn Beck delivers his keynote address to the conference on Saturday night. That image: CPAC is American Conservatism in caricature.

The embrace of torture by CPAC crowds, in particular, makes all of their Constitutional and limited government posturing ring hollow. They are clearly more interested in demagoguery of Obama than they are in the principles they profess.

Related CPAC News:

• Greg Sargent, “Poll: Majority Backs Mirandizing Of Xmas Plotter And Other Terror Suspects.” The Plum Line, WhoRunsGov.com, 19 February 2010.
• Leigh Ann Caldwell, “At Conservative Political Action Conference: Torture In, Palin Out.” NewsJunkiePost.com, 18 February 2010.
• Check out the CPAC 2010 page at MediaMatters.org for wall to wall coverage of the conference.

Related on Care2:

• Questionable motives in need of questioning – Cheney attacks Obama … Again, 5 January 2010.
• Investigating Torture: Bush Tactics Harmed US National Security, 28 April 2009.