Isn't it true that most pretty much all Congresspeople and Senators supported, passed or failed to effectively criticize those measures as well? Not to take away from their clear naivete in trusting a "conservative" politician like Bush Jr's "character" to not use powers supposedly created for terrorists against domestic opponents as well as just general people.

I can see only two reasons why a person would sit silent during the Bush Administration's passage of the Patriot Act, use of warrentless wiretapping and email searches, and illegal invasion of Iraq but now wants to be able to refuse orders of the Commander in Chief for continuing the same practices - stupidity or racism

While I am sure you are right in some cases, I can see at least one other option. As political discussion on these issues has grown and expanded, some could have simply become more aware and uneasy. It's like how some liberals today refuse to acknowledge the Obama Administration's clear violations and expansions in that same vein--assassinations, drone bombings, expansion of the use of government secrecy, bailouts of capitalist financial institutions (started under Bush) etc. When one considers the "home team" is in power, the blinders come on.

It's no different.

This is a typical danger of partisanship rather than individual conscience.