Bob Barr tells his story on Bloomberg

Bob Barr tells his story. What happened to the Republican Party after the Republican Revolution of 1994? Barr argues in this interview on Bloomberg that it died 4 years later in a meeting with Newt Gingrich right before the 1998 election. However, in his book The Meaning of Is (2004) I learned that things changed much earlier than that. It happened with Newt's cave (p. 223) on the Clinton 1995 budget, where Barr reports that Gingrich meant to discipline Republicans who did not do a 180 with him, with Gingrich that is.

Barr continues, explaining that he stayed in the Republican Party after 1998 because he saw hope yet for reform from within the party. This hope disappeared for him when (1) he heard Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez say that habeas corpus was no longer important and (2) President Bush repeatedly say that he would spy on American citizens within this country without court orders because he was commander-in-chief, even though there's a law that says he can't.

I must say that personally these were exactly the two things I saw in the Bush administration that deeply alarmed me. I remember turning to a friend of mine, while watching Kafka's play Amerika at the Jeune Lune Theatre and saying that Bush needed to be impeached if he didn't back off. That was early 2006. Since then I have changed my mind. Now I support impeaching Cheney instead, after learning more, particularly from Frontline. I continue to be deeply alarmed, and the Democrats are no succor.








Responding to the dull argument in the third video, I say it's not campaign finance that's at the root of the two-party state, it's the form of election. We Americans can address the problem without curtailing political speech, by moving to a form of election that's truly general.

Bob Barr - how one president set the precedent for another

4 years ago Bob Barr wrote an intelligent book on how President Clinton set the precedent for President Bush in the accelerating erosion of our civil liberties and due process. Here he describes how an FBI "wish list", which included many of the things Democrats complain so vehemently about with Bush, came to light and how the Clinton administration "drafted a massive anti-terror package and sent it to Congress," some provisions of which Barr successfully defeated in 1996 "by banding together with libertarian-leaning conservatives and civil libertarians in the Democrat ranks. (p. 87)"

Tomorrow at the National Press Club, Bob Barr might announce that he's running for President.

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Update (May 12, 2008, 9:50 am Central): Minutes to go before Barr speaks. I just read a critique of Newt Gingrich by The Other McCain.

Ralph Z. Hallow of The Washington Times has a story about Republicans who fear the potential impact of a Barr LP candidacy:

Republicans, both publicly and behind the scenes, are saying that a Barr run could hurt him financially and sink Mr. McCain's Republican candidacy in the general election, likely against Sen. Barack Obama.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told The Times today that "Bob Barr will make it marginally easier for Barack Obama to become president. That outcome threatens every libertarian value Barr professes to champion."

Electing the co-author of McCain-Feingold would threaten no libertarian values?

I'd add what Barr wrote in his book on p. 223,

When Republicans finally waved the white flag of surrender and caved in to Clinton's budget demands, the approach taken by our leaders was particularly disturbing. Through late fall and early winter 1995 as the "crisis" played itself out, in meeting after meeting Newt had been urging us to hold tough. Newt repeatedly reminded us that principle had gotten us where we were and must always be our ultimate guide. In the end, however, Newt changed course suddenly and completely, telling us we were going to give Clinton what he wanted, and we had by-God better support it. He even told us—for the first time to my knowledge—that he was going to keep a list of every member who did not vote to cave on the Clinton spending package and that the list would later be used to punish us.

Update (May 12, 2008, 10:20 am Central): Why is Newt's cave an important issue for everyone, all Americans, Democrats and Republicans alike? Ask David Walker, the recent Comptroller General of the United States of America. See - Thomas Jefferson and the Barbarian Invasions