This is very interesting….
via Alexander Brunk:
Quote:
As of Saturday, Bob Barr is now the official Libertarian party nominee for President of the United States. Some conservatives, dissatisfied with John McCain as the GOP’s standard bearer, seem to think that here is a candidate ripe to receive the protest votes of thousands of movement conservatives dissatisfied with the direction that McCain is taking our party.
I wasn’t shocked that the libertarian party picked Barr – they are desperate for a candidate who more than a tiny fraction of the country has actually heard of. He’s a compelling speaker and will gain publicity for the party. But I’m surprised at how willing they are to ignore much of Barr’s history in doing so.
Certainly, it seems ironic that the man who was once congress’s greatest champion of the “War on Drugs” is now the leader of a fringe party devoted to opposing it. A man who rails against overspending in Washington himself voted for No Child Left Behind, which libertarians hate. A man who was one of the main movers and shakers in the impeachment trial of President Clinton, which most libertarians opposed. A man who voted for the Patriot Act, but has now spent the last five years speaking out against it.
The bottom line is that when he was in congress, Barr was a loyal Republican footsoldier, not a movement conservative or libertarian who just happened to have an R next to his name.
His criticism of big government Republicanism, and then his movement toward the libertarian party and his rejection of Republicans altogether only occurred after Republicans rejected him – tossing him out of his congressional district in a 2002 primary, and failing to support an attempted return to congress the following year.
When Bob Barr was in congress, when he had the opportunity to stand up for the principles he now claims to champion, he didn’t. He is not the principled leader he claims to be. And conservatives and libertarians alike looking to cast a protest vote should look past him.
You know I kind of had a feeling that this was true. I just was not sure. It is what I suspected. I noticed that during the voting process at the Libertarian convention, that were were a few who spoke out against Bob Barr. Now I see why.