Bob Barr, prescription drugs, and me

So, it was an interesting Debate at Lolita Bar. As was rumored in advance, Bob Barr himself showed up as I argued against his presidential campaign. Thus, he got a chance to heckle me, the crowd was raucous and packed with libertarian purist wannabees, and I lost the vote against my estimable debating opponent, Avery Knapp, by a 2-1 margin. A good time was had by all.

I stated in my presentation that Bob Barr had voted for the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan, and Barr called out "I wasn't even in Congress then. Do your research." I then asked if he'd ever supported the legislation and he was oddly silent. I'd first heard about Barr's stand on the issue from a post by Ramesh Ponnuru at NRO and I hadn't seen this follow-up:

Rep. Bob Barr and Entitlements [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Earlier, I noted that Rep. Barr had voted to create a prescription-drug entitlement in Medicare. Clark Stooksbury points out that Barr had left Congress before the bill passed in 2003. That's correct. But Barr was still in Congress in 2002, and he voted for the idea then. (I phrased the post a bit clumsily, so it sounded as though I were claiming that Barr had voted for the bill in 2003.)

So again, I will point out to my libertarian purist friends that their nemesis, John McCain, voted against the Medicare expansion, and their new hero, Bob Barr, backed the idea.

Video of the event may be available soon. I'll keep you updated.

UPDATE: I'm told the video is of poor quality, and getting it online will take some time. But whenever it is ready, readers of this blog will be among the first to know.

UPDATE 6/9: Video here.

Bob Barr in Haiti

During the 2008 campaign, I had the pleasure of debating the dubious merits of Bob Barr's quixotic Libertarian candidacy in Barr's presence, as part of the now-defunct Debates at Lolita Bar. I said some fairly critical things about Barr, including a wisecrack about shaving cream that may have been a step beyond the proper decorum in speaking to and about a former congressman. I recall suggesting that his candidacy would be a springboard into future success in talk radio and the speaking circuit. What I never imagined is that Barr would resurface as a representative for the infamous Haitian dictator "Baby Doc" Duvalier upon the latter's return to Haiti. How that squares with any kind of libertarianism I don't presume to guess. (Via LGF.)

Question for Bob Barr

At Reason, Radley Balko has pointed questions for Barack Obama (I noted his McCain questions here). Asked in the comments whether he'll now direct such at Bob Barr, Balko responds:

Barr doesn't have a chance to win the election, so I'm not sure it's worth the effort. I'm also not really sure what I would ask him. He's been pretty up front about his Road to Damascus moment, and that he's done a 180 on a host of issues. Seems like it would just be the same question, over and over.

Well, I have a question for Bob Barr:

Mr. Barr, in 2002 you voted to add a prescription-drug benefit to Medicare. Such a measure -- the entitlement state's largest expansion since the 1960s -- was passed in 2003, when you were no longer in Congress. John McCain voted against it. Do you regret your 2002 vote, and do you regret obfuscating the issue recently by stating "I wasn't even in Congress" when it passed?

Barr effect on Reason

David Weigel lavishes some uncritical attention on Bob Barr and seems pleased by the "Barr effect," e.g., the Libertarian's apparent prospect of throwing Alaska to Obama. Barr is quoted at length saying things like "With regards to the philosophy generally, my philosophy is a much smaller government, much greater personal freedoms, dramatically reducing the size, the scope, the power of the federal government," blah blah blah.

I think one Barr effect is the continuing decline of critical faculties at Reason. That this thoroughgoing social conservative and anti-immigration hard-liner (with a poor record on fiscal conservatism) should be getting an enthusiastic reception at the magazine of "free minds and free markets" suggests that McCain Derangement Syndrome has reached an advanced stage over there, and/or that they've concluded their own circulation numbers require pandering to their more illiberal readers.

Barr no-show

There's chagrin in hard-libertarian circles that Bob Barr didn't show up for Ron Paul's press conference today. It makes my opinion of Barr go up a notch.

UPDATE 3:15 PM: Plenty more here. I bet some of the pro-Barr people at last June's debate are pretty confused now (I mean, more than they were then).

June 4 debate

Todd Seavey announces the upcoming Debate at Lolita Bar:

Should Conservatives and Libertarians Vote for Barr Instead of McCain?

Next week, Wed., June 4 (8pm), Avery Knapp (who ran the Ron Paul Meet-Up group, remains active in the movement, and is a radiologist by day) will argue yes to that question and writer Ken Silber (whose writing has appeared in Reason, TCSDaily, the Freeman, and several prominent right-leaning publications) will argue no — while interested Democrats look on to see what happens when the right develops a Nader of its own — on the basement level of 266 Broome St. at Allen St. (one block south and three west of the Delancey St. subway stop), with Michel Evanchik moderating and Todd Seavey hosting.

Today, though, Memorial Day is observed — and some might find themselves thinking of war heroes like John McCain or soldiers in Iraq and planning to vote for the Republican in November’s presidential election.

And today is also the final day of the Libertarian Party convention, and former Republican Rep. Bob Barr has emerged as their presidential nominee, with fairly mainstream libertarian sportcaster Wayne Allyn Root as his running mate — the six hundred or so delegates at the convention narrowly picking Barr over Mary Ruwart, who has suggested legalizing child pornography and investigating whether explosives were used to fake the World Trade Center collapse. (Let us never speak of her again.)

Whether you favor McCain, Barr, or just seeing conservatives experience electoral pain in some small way comparable to that which Gore experienced in 2000 and Hillary is experiencing now, please join us.

Bob Barr bonanza

Here, via Instapundit, is a piece on "Will Barr Have an Impact on Presidential Race?" It contains the words "While victory may currently appear out of reach..." Not just appear, my friends.

Meanwhile, at Reason, David Weigel acknowledges the Barr campaign's funding and ballot-access doldums, but still manages to find the situation "ominous" for Republicans. It'll be more ominous for Libertarians if their most famous candidate ever gets, say, 1 percent of the vote.

Readers wanting yet more on Bob Barr are recommended to click here, here and here.

ID's last gasp

Future historians of real and fake science, looking for the anticlimactic death rattle of the Intelligent Design movement, might pinpoint the essay "The End of Intelligent Design?" in the religious-conservative magazine First Things, by Stephen Barr, whose book I reviewed a few years ago. (Essay found via Walter Olson.) For years, I tried to point out that the ID argument (that the laws of nature are inhospitable to life, which thus must have arisen by a miracle) is at odds with the anthropic type of argument propounded by Barr and others (that the laws of nature are strangely hospitable to life, and thus the laws were deliberately fine-tuned). Getting design enthusiasts to even recognize this tension was hard. When it comes to making a choice, they're well-advised to ditch the ID argument.

UPDATE: Unsurprisingly, Barr's essay gets a negative reaction from IDer William Dembski, who accuses Barr of trying to curry favor with his scientific colleagues. IDers at this point apparently care little for such respect, or have just given up on it.

Barr bar debate -- the video

Here's video of me and Avery Knapp doing our closing remarks at the June 4 debate, on whether conservatives and libertarians should vote for Barr or McCain, with Bob Barr in attendance. The video includes the vote.

More videos, with Barr's remarks after the debate, are here.

Barr closing

With 98 percent of precincts reporting, Bob Barr has 490,644 votes, which CNN helpfully rounds down to a big fat zero percent. So maybe he won't get a talk-radio gig after all. But he's welcome to stop by at Lolita Bar anytime.

UPDATE: This would be a good time to point out that the electorate has been growing, and therefore comparing absolute numbers of Libertarian votes now versus previous years is misleading. Over 110 million votes were cast in the 2008 presidential election, compared to 86 million in 1980. Thus, Barr having "the second-best Libertarian presidential performance of all time," albeit "well behind Ed Clark's 921,128 votes in 1980," is actually a bit pathetic.

Remembering Bob Barr

Ross Douthat is skeptical about Lou Dobbs' presidential chances: "Remember when Bob Barr was going to play a spoiler’s role in 2008?" Yes, Bob Barr...let him be a warning to Lou just how fast your political career can go downhill when you mess with the wrong person.

Barr movement update

The Bob Barr juggernaut rolls on.

A rally by the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps featuring Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr drew just a few dozen people.

The man managed to attract a few dozen people to Lolita Bar a few months ago. But then his momentum stalled.

Bob Barr border bombast

In case you thought that Bob Barr's various policy conversions include some change in his immigration stance, he's circulated a letter to show he stills wants a crackdown:

We’re facing a “new” crisis: BORDER SECURITY.

But really, this is the same crisis we faced last year at this time, when Senators John McCain and Ted Kennedy tried to push their “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” bill on us—supported by Senator Barack Obama!

The American people were able to STOP the McCain-Kennedy bill—but will we be able to stop PRESIDENT McCain (or PRESIDENT Obama) from pushing it through again?

We need to send a strong message to both the Republicans AND the Democrats, to let them know that WE MEAN BUSINESS when it comes to securing the border!

Well, at least the all-caps button on Barr's keyboard is working. Here by the way is what the Libertarian Party supposedly stands for on immigration, as stated on its website:

When large numbers of otherwise decent people routinely violate a law, the law itself is probably the problem. To argue that illegal immigration is bad merely because it is illegal avoids the threshold question of whether we should prohibit this kind of immigration in the first place.

Barr chutzpah

Bob Barr, who for some reason is still running for president, has a complaint:

Palin didn't explain what the Republican ticket would do differently from the current Republican administration and past Republican Congresses. For example, the words Social Security, Medicare, national debt, the deficit and the Constitution didn't pass her lips. Yet Social Security and Medicare alone face an unfunded liability of more than $100 trillion. The national debt runs $9.5 trillion. The deficit next year will be a half trillion dollars.

Who was it again who voted to add prescription drug coverage to Medicare?

Barr vs McCain

Here's the preliminary announcement for next month's debate at Lolita Bar:

“Should Conservatives and Libertarians Vote for Barr Instead of McCain?” (title may be tweaked depending on LP convention results in late May) — with Ron Paul campaign veteran Avery Knapp (yes) vs. science and economics writer (Scientific American Mind, elsewhere) Ken Silber (no). Michel Evanchik moderates, and Todd Seavey hosts. Wed., June 4, at 8pm.

Free admission, cash bar. The debates, usually pitting two opponents against each other (in a civil and often humorous fashion), take place on the basement level of Lolita Bar at 266 Broome St. at the corner of Allen St. on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, one block south and three west of the Delancey St. F, J, M, Z subway stop.

The moderate on that stage

Could this be a clever strategy by Bob Barr to gain credibility by appearing with people wackier than he is?

RightMarch.com announces that Bob Barr, Chuck Baldwin, and Alan Keyes will all be speaking at a rally against illegal immigration that will take place in Denver on the first day of the Democratic convention.

Bob Barr bar basement bout

Reminder: The Debate at Lolita Bar, in which I say "No" to "Should conservatives and libertarians vote for Barr instead of McCain?" is this Wednesday, June 4, at 8pm. Could be interesting....

UPDATE 6/9: Video here.

Let Bob Barr debate

I agree that Bob Barr should be included in a debate or two with John McCain and Barack Obama. Such an event should also include other electorally challenged candidates such as Ralph Nader, Chuck Baldwin and Cynthia McKinney. None of which removes the imperative of having some presidential debates limited to people who have a realistic chance to become president.

The youth vote today

Here's something for the dumb-as-bricks* file:

"I'll probably vote for Obama,'' said a 20-year-old student, Baron Remeisen, from Fort Lauderdale, who will cast his first vote in a presidential election. "I was thinking of voting for Bob Barr (the Libertarian candidate) but because of pressure from my family, and Bob Barr probably won't win, I'll vote for Obama.

"I really don't have a good reason not to vote for McCain,'' he said. "I guess the Democrats are more popular right now.''

* - see here.

Bob Barr's trek

There's no Scotty to beam up Bob Barr from having to answer questions about his anti-Wiccan crusade, or something like that. Don't ask me, but you can read about it here.