Presidential 2008 Bob Barr Is Looking Good

Not since 1996, when the presidential choices were Bill Clinton and Bob Dole has the presumptive nominees of the Republican and Democratic parties been so underwhelming. In 2000, I was a big McCain fan. But since then he’s sold out his more maverick positions, and has mangled his foreign policy credibility with perplexing misstatements that are so fundamental to global stage politics that I can’t imagine how the man who brilliantly foresaw time after time, American military intervention dilemmas whether its was, Lebanon, the Gulf War or Kosovo,  could be so wrong on Iraq now. An example, here’s McCain from a 1983 floor speech:

The fundamental question is: What is the United States’ interest in Lebanon? It is said we are there to keep the peace. I ask, what peace? It is said we are there to aid the government. I ask, what government? It is said we are there to stabilize the region. I ask, how can the U.S. presence stabilize the region?… The longer we stay in Lebanon, the harder it will be for us to leave. We will be trapped by the case we make for having our troops there in the first place.

Not much different from the situtaiont we find ourselves in Iraq these days. Yet here is McCain now:

“This goes back to when we didn’t have enough boots on the ground, after the initial military success,’’ he said. “Iranian clerics moved into the region, Iranian influence moved into southern Iraq, and we basically, and the British, did not do a great deal to prevent them. These are the penalties we continue to pay for the very bad mishandling of the war for nearly four years while they became solidly entrenched.”

Iranian influence is not the problem in Iraq, McCain should consult his earlier self for what peace and what government questions. Obama is even worse of foreign policy.

I will end the war in Iraq… I will close Guantanamo. I will restore habeas corpus. I will finish the fight against Al Qaeda. And I will lead the world to combat the common threats of the 21st century: nuclear weapons and terrorism; climate change and poverty; genocide and disease. And I will send once more a message to those yearning faces beyond our shores that says, “You matter to us. Your future is our future. And our moment is now.”

And is anyone paying attention to the ongoing South American foreign policy issues? Which brings me to Bob Barr. Barr is not exactly my ideal candidate, but in the fantasy football forced ranking of issues, there his name bubbles up because he lands in a short vector of being against government eavesdropping, suspending habeas corpus, and runaway spending. And he’s credible on those issues, unlike the other remaining candidates.

Here’s Barr on why he is running:

I decided to run for several reasons. One, because I want to restore the Constitution to our federal government. It seems to have been completely forgotten and disregarded by Congress and by this administration. I believe in the Constitution. I believe in separation of powers. I believe in the rule of law. I believe in limited government. And these are principles and policies that apparently neither the national Republican nor the national Democrat Party believes in. I believe great damage is being done to our Constitution and I see no remedy at all, no likelihood of that changing if we rely on the two parties to field our candidates for national office. The Libertarian Party alone among America’s political parties truly stands for smaller government and maximized individual liberty. I believe if we don’t take a stand now and try to reverse course, we may never have the opportunity again. I think there are a number of factors coming together for this cycle that give us a much greater likelihood for success than any previous election.

And here is Barr on what he wants wants to talk abtou in his campaign:

 They all come back to smaller government, whether we are talking about the power of government or the cost of government. So ultimately every single issue comes down to shrinking the size, the power, the scope and the cost of the federal government. I would — unlike either of the two major party candidates — immediately, upon taking office in January, shrink the size of the federal government, beginning with the executive office of the president to the greatest extent possible, even before going to the Congress. I would institute a freeze in the executive branch and begin cutting back. I would send a message to the Congress that any bill that would be sent to me that would increase the size of the federal government would be vetoed — and that means as well any piece of legislation that would purport to raise the national debt ceiling. I would immediately instruct the Department of Justice to once again respect the writ of habeas corpus and respect the rule of law.

Yet, Barr is also famously known his zealous support for the war on drugs, going as far as advocating a federal prohibition of medical marijuana, (so much for smaller government), and his role in promoting the impeachment of President Clinton, long before the Monica Lewinsky stuff, belies his current stance on the roles of the congress and the executive branch. Of all the candidates, Barr at least has a sense of humor that would fit nicely here on the blog. From the wiki:

Barr hosts a political talk radio show on Radio America called Bob Barr’s Laws of the Universe[74], on which he has had guests including Trent Lott, Tom DeLay, Oliver North, and Robert Bork. His first “law of the Universe” is that “the world is full of idiots“, and he features an “Idiot of the Week” on his show, along with a top ten of “Idiots of the Year” selected from the Idiots of the Week.

I have my doubts about whether Barr is the one to make this a three way race, but if the presidential debates are going be devoid of any serious policy talk, at least give me idiots of the week.

source: American Conservative, The Madness of John McCain, by Justin Raimondo, Feburary 2008

source: The Pitsburgh Tribune Review, Bob Barr: Raising the debate , By Bill Steigerwald, May 17, 2008

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  • old timer

    Bob Barr ? Are you kidding ? Is he kidding ?
    That is all we need, a candidate whose greatest asset is an ability to identify idiots. He would have a great time in Washington. Can you imagine him conducting international diplomacy ?
    Why not Colbert, if a comic is what we need ?

  • turfgrrl

    old timer: I kid you not. Barr is interesting because he writes stuff like this about the new Georgia DOT chief:
    The impressive nature of Ms. Abraham’s abilities begins with her two engineering degrees from Georgia Tech – a bachelor’s in 1992 and a doctorate in 2001 – but hardly ends there. There are thousands of Tech graduates serving our state in business, technology, academia, and government. Yet probably none, at least in recent memory, have accomplished as much and as quickly as Commissioner Abraham.
    Would that CT could hire at DOT chief with engineering degrees.But I digress. Here’s Barr again:

    Everyone seems to agree – at least publicly – that change is not only necessary, but vital at Georgia DOT if the state is to meet the challenges posed by sky rocketing costs, diminishing revenues, and oppressive federal regulations. The new Commissioner likely recognizes there are two ways to effect change demanded by time or circumstance or, in this case, both time and circumstance. Knowing what needs to be done and the direction you need to go is just the beginning. To accomplish the goal, you can either move gradually, like banking a large passenger plane, or you can bank fast and hard, which might get you headed quickly in the right direction, but at a cost of great discomfort to your passengers. The latter approach almost inevitably will make future trips more difficult and less productive.

    Barr gets government. Is he a legit presidential candidate? I’m not sold yet. But he’s got interesting things to say at the wonky level that we need right now, unlike the latest pablum served in the presidential race.

  • Anonymous

    ah, but the great unwashed masses prefer pablum to substance!

  • anony

    We need Ron Paul

  • Anonymous

    The issues Barr espouses are exactly why he’s unelectable. They’re too much for the idiots in Congress to deal with, and way too irrelevant to the majority of the voting public, who would much prefer exercising their vote on “American Idol.”

  • janeforfreedom

    I saw alot of info on bob barr that I wasnt aware of. Wayne Root? What exactly qualifies him to be a VP? Here is a site with info you wont find on any of the Campaign sites. Go to this link and read. Got some useful info there. this site is obviously not related to any officail campaign site. But has lots of info on it.
    http://www.BarrRoot08.com

  • Anon-O-Dude

    Eek!!! Are you sure about this, Turf?

    Bob Barr is a living monument to hypocrisy. Author of the “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA) and champion of family values, he has been married three times and been in court twice for failing to pay child support. In 1992, Barr showed his support for “family values” by licking whipped cream off two strippers’ breasts during a fundraiser. A fighter against abortion, Barr encouraged his second wife to have an abortion and paid for it…

  • Anon

    #7 Don’t forget that waitress sandwich invented by the twice divorced homicide swimmer and the trade-her-in-for-a-younger-babe Chris lard…er..Dodd.

  • Anonymoose

    Absolutely f””n’ great and just what we need: another plurality president like the Bent One. Barr, like Perot is going to suck votes (that giant sucking sound) from McCain, and then we can look forward to Al Sharpton being Secretary of Racial Profiling Justice, Jesse Jackson being Minister of Reparations and Louis Farrakhan will be nominated to the Supreme Court (the Constitution doesn’t require a you to be a lawyer). Maybe all the white land owners will be run out of New Orleans.

  • Anonymous

    Turffie you are the absolute best blogger in Connecticut. Bob Barr is looking good? Priceless.

  • Too bad

    http://lucianne.com/threads2.asp?artnum=404859

    If McCain were to lose, I’d feel safer if Hillary were President.

  • Diane Cece – It’s time

    Are you guys serious or is this a joke? After 8 years with the village idiot, you can’t see the inspiration for change and hope that Barack Obama brings?
    This country is the laughing stock of the world. Safe? If anyone dared attack us now, NO ONE would come to our defense, not even our “ally” not-so-Great Britain. We are hated. There existed a brief and glorious window of opportunity following 9/11 when the WHOLE world would have moved heaven and earth to find and destroy the terrorists and help us to rebuild and heal. The window was closed quickly and completely by the village idiot. Let’s hope, not permanently.
    We need someone to restore our place of respect in the world, for our ideals and our mighty force.
    You are about to witness history in the making, and the next 8 years of your life may be the best, regardless of how old you are next January.
    I hope to be alive and be able to say that this historic change happened in my lifetime, something I only yearned for in my youth, but sadly never thought could be. Sen. Obama is right – this is the moment, and this is our time.
    Right, I do blog under my own name. The racist anonymoose posting is pathetic, and troubles me to no end that people still think this way in 2008. Un-f___ng-believable. God help us.

  • anony

    Looks like Jimmy Carter all over again.

  • Not an African American

    “America has been raping people of color, and America has to pay the price for the rape”.

    credit: Father Pfleger.

    Is it a beer hall putsch redux?

    An indication of things to come?

  • anon

    Come on, Diane… you’re a bit trusting, no? Barack’s a politician and a good one at that. The sheep project far too much when they are not happy with the un-statis quo. I have yet to hear anything but fluff from Obama. If he offers a change (and wins by default) that doesn’t necessarily make him worth voting for.

  • Diane Cece – It’s time

    Anon 15: I guess in the end all presidential candidates mostly “fluff” when running, and only time will tell. If he offers change, wins by default, and we DO have sweeping and lasting positive changes, then he would have been worth voting for. Sometimes voting is not just the lesser of two evil routes – in my case I’m wieghing the unknown vs the known, and this I know for sure: This country as we know it, and this great experiment, may end if we have even just another 4 years of the continued Bush policies. Sorry to sound overly dramatic about it, but I truly feel this way.

  • Anon

    Diane: Will you join Susan Sarandon when she moves to Italy to escape McCain’s election? Take Alec Baldwin with you; he was supposed to leave in 2004.

  • Diane Cece – It’s time

    No, but I wonder how many of you will make good on the promise to “move to Canada if a black man is elected”. Makes me sick to my stomach.
    There is a big difference here – I have no issues with “McCain the man”, only his political views and intended war policies. Whereas many people I know have one issue with Obama, and it is him the man, an African-American, and no consideration for his views. Get the picture?

  • turfgrrl

    Diane Cece: Yet there are others who think Obama is eminently unqualified to be commander-in-chief, precisely because of his intended war policies. And why is that? Because Obama, hasn’t bothered to actually hold policy meetings (as chair of Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Affairs), I suppose due to his extensive experience as a state senator from Illinois who managed, at best, present votes instead of the decision making yay, or nays.

    But then Hillary said it best:

    “He (Obama) chairs the subcommittee on Europe. … He’s held not one substantive hearing to do oversight.”

    Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 in a debate in Cleveland
    Dormant while Obama campaigns
    True

    In one of the more pointed barbs in a Feb. 26, 2008, debate, Sen. Hillary Clinton charged that Sen. Barack Obama has been so busy running for president that he hasn’t done much of anything as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Affairs.

    “I also have heard Senator Obama refer continually to Afghanistan, and he references being on the Foreign Relations Committee,” Clinton said. “He chairs the Subcommittee on Europe. It has jurisdiction over NATO. NATO is critical to our mission in Afghanistan. He’s held not one substantive hearing to do oversight, to figure out what we can do to actually have a stronger presence with NATO in Afghanistan.”

    Obama responded: “Well, first of all, I became chairman of this committee at the beginning of this campaign, at the beginning of 2007. So it is true that we haven’t had oversight hearings on Afghanistan.”

    Although Obama acknowledges the point, we sought to confirm what the subcommittee has been doing.

    Congressional records show, and spokesmen for several subcommittee members confirm, the subcommittee has not held any policy hearings since Obama was appointed chair in early 2007. The subcommittee’s jurisdiction includes “all matters, policies and problems concerning the continent of Europe, including the European member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.”

    The chair sets the agenda for a subcommittee and Obama could have asked to hold a hearing on NATO and its role in Afghanistan.

    But Clinton’s claim, while technically true, is unfair, said Andrew J. Fischer, a spokesman for Republican Sen. Richard Lugar. Lugar now serves as a minority member of the Foreign Relations Committee, but he was the chair, from 2003 to 2006, when Republicans controlled the Senate. He is the ranking Republican on the committee.

    Fischer, who is a minority staff member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said something as major as NATO’s role in Afghanistan would typically be held before the full Foreign Relations Committee, rather than Obama’s European subcommittee.

    In fact, the Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on Afghanistan on Jan. 31, 2008, and NATO was a part of the discussion. Obama attended a Democratic debate in California that day. Clinton is not on the committee.

    The Clinton campaign put out a statement reiterating Clinton’s comments to reinforce the theme that Obama is more about talk than action.

    “Given the opportunity to take the reins of leadership and shape two critical areas of U.S. foreign policy — Afghanistan and our alliances in Europe — Senator Obama has done next to nothing,” the statement said.

    Obama’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

    So let’s look at Clinton’s statement:

    “He chairs the subcommittee on Europe.” Yep.

    “It has jurisdiction over NATO.” Yep.

    “NATO is critical to our mission in Afghanistan. He’s held not one substantive hearing to do oversight, to figure out what we can do to actually have a stronger presence with NATO in Afghanistan.” Yep.

    Some may argue that the issue of NATO’s role in Afghanistan typically and more appropriately would come before the full Foreign Relations Committee. But Clinton is right when she says Obama’s subcommittee has been largely dormant while Obama has campaigned for president. We rate her comment True.

  • anon

    Diane CC – Interesting how you bring race into the argument. Just as YOU generalize, we would suppose there are many who back Barack BECAUSE he is non-white and for no other reason. That, too, is a sad situation. It was Whoopie Goldberg who said she could not support Barack because he had no solutions for the many problems that currently face our country.

  • Anon

    I never thought that I would say this, but if a Republican president is not in the cards, I’d feel safer, and more secure with…gulp…Hillary as President. Why? Because you are the company you keep and the company he keeps and has kept for the past twenty plus years hate America. Regardless of the color of his skin, electing Obama now is not much different than having elected Tom Hayden in the 60′s. The absence of the lapel pin and the refusal to be reverent during the pledge of allegiance spoke volumes to me. His wife’s newly discovered “pride”, the revelations of his pastoral mentors, his political footings in this country’s most corrupt political machine (Daley) all repel me from ever accepting this man as deserving of the highest office in this land.

    Some background:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weatherman_%28organization%29

  • Diane Cece – It’s time

    Now you’ll be surprised that i AGREE with Turfgrl’s assessment, #20 anon, and #21 anon.
    1) Any senator or governor running for president is not doing the work of the people, and I’ve wondered why they are not forced to resign their seats if they are to take on an 18-month race. I don’t like the “have your cake and eat it too” by having a cushy job to fall back on if you lose.
    How much work has McCain actually done since he has been out campaigning: too tired to research tonite, but trust TG will do some.
    2) ANon 20 – That is EXACTLY my point. Of course that is just as bad if not worse then those doing the opposite. Shameful.
    3) Anon 21 – This items must each be scrutinized one by one, and I urge you not to believe all that you read in newspapers, or {gulp} blogs.
    Hope I am giving proper legal credit here, but this is Associated Press quote of Ms. Obama’s explanation:
    “What I was clearly talking about was that I’m proud in how Americans are engaging in the political process,” she said.
    “For the first time in my lifetime, I’m seeing people rolling up their sleeves in a way that I haven’t seen and really trying to figure this out — and that’s the source of pride that I was talking about,” she added.
    When asked if she had always been proud of her country, she replied “absolutely” and said she and her husband would not be where they are now if not for the opportunities of America.

  • anon

    I agree, Anon 21. Excellent points and I, myself, cannot embrace Obama simply because he is the alternative to the Republican candidate. He is not Hilary. It’s sad that people settle for fluff over true grit. God, you can sell ‘em anything. And another thing… you cannot convince me that Obama was scratching his face and not giving Hilary the gesture he was. I’m sorry, but those sports bar antics are not the posture of someone I would elect – let alone, settle for – president of the US.

  • Anonymous

    I think John McCain will make a fine president.

  • Anonymous

    #22-what the heck do you think Obama and Clinton have been doing? Theyt are both Senators and spending the exact same time as McCain, so whats the difference?

  • Diane Cece – It’s time

    #25 – that is what I am complaining about – all THREE of them wasting time running for office. Once they declare their intention to run, I think they should immediately resign whatever public office they hold, and have their seat filled in accordance with their own state laws. I was pointing out that McCain is just as bad as the other two! Man, this is exhausting. My response was an answer to TG’s post on Obama not conducting any hearings, etc.

  • Robert F

    Turfie pushing a Libertarian? That and some of your recent bi-partisan “activities” would be going full circle from the conversation we had years ago with Carlin & Rosemary.

  • turfgrrl

    Robert F: The ghosts of political debates past always have a place at the Algonquin.