The party of ideas

Republican leaders like to say that the GOP is the "party of ideas." We can't disagree with them there. As Think Progress documents today, Republicans are chock full of ideas on how to fix what ails us.

Iraq and the Middle East: Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback says the United States should do more than just engage with Syria and Iran: We should ship Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice over there until everything is better. "We've been very patient with this, and we've invested a lot," Brownback said Sunday on Fox. "I do think as well it's time for us to put diplomatic pressure to the point where you just park the vice president and secretary of state in the region. It's shuttle diplomacy going back and forth between the countries that will receive us, really pushing on them to stop funding things into Iraq and start working with us, because they don’t need a civil war in that region either, and to really have them start coming to the table instead of just sitting back and even hurting the situation inside of Iraq."

Iran: Outgoing Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum tells Don Imus that, rather than enlist Iran's help with Iraq, we ought to be confronting the country's leadership now. How? "Well, I’ve (inaudible) forward a whole bunch of different things. For example, there was a bus driver strike a few weeks ago in Iran. We did nothing to support it; we should have. We should have quietly gone in there and given them a whole boat-load of money so they could sustain the strike and continue to cause unrest within Iran to try to topple the government."

Cuba: A promotional clip for a new anti-Castro documentary shows Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen saying: "I welcome the opportunity of having anyone assassinate Fidel Castro and any leader who is oppressing the people." Ros-Lehtinen tells the Miami Herald that the clip was "spliced together" and that "no one advocates assassination" anymore. At the same time, however, she says that she "wouldn't be crying" if "someone were to do it."

-- Tim Grieve