Just because my friends at Delawareliberal might miss this. . . .

. . . (and I am being utterly serious here).

In all the furor over Bob Barr's announcement yesterday that he is seeking the Libertarian presidential nomination, there is an aspect of this whole story that non-Libertarians might well have missed, and which Democrats in particular should be interested in.

Here's how far you can trust the loyalty of Bob Barr. While serving as a member of the Libertarian National Committee over the past two years, Barr has also headed a PAC that was simultaneously delivering thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to Republican candidates around the country--even in races where the Libertarian Party was running candidates.

That, for my liberal friends, is not the key part (because, after all, which should jason, geek, cassandra, pandora, or dv care about the internal treacheries of opposing parties, major or minor?).

Here's my point. Among these contributions, the Barr PAC sent the following to support Georgia chickenshit ('scuse me, I meant chickenhawk) Republican Saxby Chambliss:

Georgia Senate race

Libertarian candidate: Allen Buckley

Bob Barr supported
05/08/07 Saxby Chambliss for Senate $ 500
06/22/07 Saxby Chambliss for Senate $1000
09/28/07 Saxby Chambliss for Senate $1000
01/07/08 Saxby Chambliss for Senate $1000

Total to Republican candidate [Saxby Chambliss] in George Senate race: $3,500

Total to Libertarian candidate in George Senate race: $ 0

I may never agree with my friends at DL about much, but on this we can smoke the pipe together:

Anyone who would actually raise money to support Saxby Chambliss has demonstrated that he lacks the judgment to run for President on anybody's ticket.

So, if knowing Barr co-wrote the Patriot Act, opposed civil unions and gay marriage, wants a hard-line immigration policy, supports the war on drugs, and can't seem to figure out whether to stay in Iraq or leave is not enough reason to realize he is not even a valid third-party candidate, then I guess the Saxby Chambliss litmus test will have to seal the deal.

Two interesting ironies to close out this post:

1) If you visit Allen Buckley's web site, you will actually find this reference: "See: Bob Barr's take on surveillance laws, with which I fully agree." Somebody really ought to tell the poor bastard that Barr is pumping cash into his opponent's campaign. (Moreover, if you take the time to read Buckley's take on the issues, you'll find that--aside from immigration, where he's indistinguishably different from Saxby's neolithic position--his positions are actually spelled out in detail and fairly rational. I don't agree with all of them, but I could sure go a lot further with him than with Chambliss.)

2) If you visit Saxby Chambliss's web site and click your way through the Issues, you'll be challenged to discover a single issue upon which good ole Saxhole presents an even vaguely Libertarian point of view.

A Libertarian Martin Luther King Jr. Day post

In which we travel into interesting waters . . . (for a fairly long trip, so be prepared) Dr. King's 1968 book, Where do we go from here: chaos or community? , is profound in that it criticizes anti-poverty programs for their piecemeal approach, as John Schlosberg of the Center for a Stateless Society [C4SS] observes: King noted that the antipoverty programs of the time “proceeded from a premise that poverty is a consequence of multiple evils,” with separate programs each dedicated to individual issues such as education and housing. Though in his view “none of these remedies in itself is unsound,” they “all have a fatal disadvantage” of being “piecemeal,” with their implementation having “fluctuated at the whims of legislative bodies” or been “entangled in bureaucratic stalling.” The result is that “fragmentary and spasmodic reforms have failed to reach down to the profoundest needs of the poor.” Such single-issue approaches also have “another common failing — ...

More of This, Please

Or perhaps I should say, "Less of this one, please." Or how about just, "None of them. Ever again. Please....For the Love of God." Sunshine State Poll: Grayson In Trouble The latest Sunshine State/VSS poll shows controversial Democratic incumbent Alan Grayson trailing former state Senator Dan Webster by seven points, 43 percent to 36 percent. A majority of respondents -- 51 percent -- disapprove of the job that Grayson is doing. Independents have an unfavorable view of him as well, by a 36/47 margin. Grayson has ignored the conventional wisdom that a freshman should be a quiet member who carefully tends to the home fires. The latest controversy involves his " Taliban Dan " advertisement, where he explicitly compares his opponent to the Taliban, and shows a clip of Webster paraphrasing Ephesians 5:22 -- "wives, submit to your husbands." An unedited version of the clip shows that Webster was actually suggesting that husba...

A reply to Salon's R. J. Eskrow, and his 11 stupid questions about Libertarians

Posts here have been in short supply as I have been living life and trying to get a campaign off the ground. But "11 questions to see if Libertarians are hypocrites" by R. J. Eskrow, picked up at Salon , was just so freaking lame that I spent half an hour answering them. In the end (but I'll leave it to your judgment), it is not that Libertarians or Libertarian theory looks hypocritical, but that the best that can be said for Mr. Eskrow is that he doesn't have the faintest clue what he's talking about. That's ok, because even ill-informed attacks by people like this make an important point: Libertarian ideas (as opposed to Conservative ideas, which are completely different) are making a comeback as the dynamic counterpoint to "politics as usual," and so every hack you can imagine must be dragged out to refute them. Ergo: Mr. Eskrow's 11 questions, with answers: 1. Are unions, political parties, elections, and ...

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