October 04, 2006

Blogometer Extra

BLOGGER VS. BLOGGER: Kos Glib On Lib(ertarian)s?

  A lengthy column by Markos Moulitsas (of DailyKos fame) at Cato Unbound is a not-so-subtle call to Libertarians seeking common ground with Democrats.  Moulitsas writes:

For too long, Republicans promised smaller government and less intrusion in people’s lives.  Yet with a government dominated top to bottom by Republicans, we’ve seen the exact opposite.  No one will ever mistake a Democrat of just about any stripe for a doctrinaire libertarian.  But we’ve seen that one party is now committed to subverting individual freedoms, while the other is growing increasingly comfortable with moving in a new direction, one in which restrained government, fiscal responsibility and—most important of all—individual freedoms are paramount.

  John Hawkins at Right Wing News is, perhaps predictably, not buying Moulitsas' argument at all, and crystallizes his thoughts pretty bluntly.  "The problem with the idea of a 'Libertarian Democrat' is that philosophically, Democrats and Libertarians could not be farther apart," Hawkins writes.  "Libertarians believe in having a weak federal government and minimal government interference in people's lives.  That's just the antithesis of what the Democrat Party has stood for over the last 70 years."

  Hawkins proceeds to compare and contrast Dems, GOPers and Libertarians, focusing particularly on civil liberties issues, with caustic wit in tow:

The truth is that the Democrats have few qualms about curbing civil liberties, they're just on the same side as Libertarians on some issues because #1) Democrats aren't serious about protecting us from terrorists #2) There are Republicans in office and Democrats tend to disagree with them on everything for no other reason than because they're Republicans.

  The Claremont Institute's Josh Treviño weighs in on the Kos column with a positively Buckleyan pallette of verbosity, quoting Raymond Arum dictums and slipping in phrases like "ersatz theorist of intellectual convergence" with relative ease.  His case is harder to discern, but it appears he too perceives little of worth with Moulitsas' assertions.  He does throw him a bone early on, tongue likely planted deep in cheek:

[Moulitsas] used to advance himself as a non-ideological man of the party, dedicated to Democratic victory in the absence of any demand for Democratic principle.  In this, he was an apt representative of the party at large: a seeker of power for its own sake, yet prone, to paraphrase Trilling, to irritable mental gestures of vicious and cruel hard-left bluster.  He was not sane in his public undertaking ... but neither did he have any pretense to being more than he was.  There is some honor in that honesty, and it should be acknowledged.

  Treviño ultimately warns a theoretical Libertarian that, should he somehow stray into Dem territory as Moulitsas et al. beckon to him, "he will experience the true regard that the Democratic party has for him soon enough."  He continues, wielding a sword of loquacious rancor:

[The Libertarian] will find himself in the company of people who do not grasp the connection between capitalism and freedom; he will find himself attending party meetings with neighbors who wish nothing more than to seize his household income for their own civic purposes; he will realize that his new fellow-travelers have not the slightest intention of allowing him to raise his children as he sees fit; and he will see Markos Moulitsas, having concluded that beekeepers are the next swing demographic, earnestly explain how he learned to be a Democrat by watching bees.

  "At that point," Treviño concludes, "he may well reflect on just what is preferable -- and what is detestable."

OH 01: Chazbot!

  Dem challenger John Cranley's team conjures up a remarkably original and amusing ad, available for viewing here, that gleefully mocks incumbent Rep. Steve Chabot (R) by using a celebrity George W. Bush impersonator (as the ad kindly notes at bottom).  The faux Bush is heard leaving a message on the answering machine of Chabot, running off a quick list of "accomplishments" and "kudos" that reinforce Cranley's depiction of Chabot as a tool of the White House.

  Chris Bowers at MyDD remarks that "this election has featured more ads trying to make use of humor than I can ever remember," and gives Cranley's ad props for being "genuinely different."

  "This ad is having a strange ability to stick in my mind," Bowers writes.  "It isn't that funny, but it has kept me quietly giggling and smiling for about fifteen minutes now."  Bowers in particular likes "a nice dig on Chabot by having Bush nickname him 'Chabby,' which is a thinly veiled homonym for 'shabby.'"

[Mike Sheehan]

Posted by Conn Carroll at October 4, 2006 07:45 PM