[conservative in nyc]

Dana Milbank's take on Bob Barr's CPAC appearance.

Unlike the New York Times, the Washington Post reports that Vice President Cheney was "far more to this crowd's liking" on the Al Qaeda call eavesdropping. The WaPo reports that the crowd was cheering the Vice President.

[billybudd]

Clearly, Bob Barr is a communist. I mean, the WaPo is talking good about him.</sarcasm>

[Texas_Jarhead]

I haven't seen any FReeper reports from CPAC as of yet.

[taxesareforever]

Bob Barr only poses as a Republican. He needs to move on to MoveOn.org

[Recovering_Democrat]

Barr has lost it. Pitiful.

[YOUGOTIT]

Barr is not a Conservative. He is a covert left-winger who immediately took a job with the anti-American ACLU when he was discharged from Congress. I would not believe anything that Barr says he has made his decision to join the left so we should stop calling him a Conservative and call him what he is a left-wing anti-American.

[Zeppo]

While I respect Barr (or, at least I used to), I would have to admit that he is way off base on this one. You need to be smart enough to pick your battles. This is simply the wrong one. Surveillance of Al Quaeda types during war is not a threat to anybody's civil liberties except for those of terrorists and their enablers - and their liberties sorely need to be threatened.

Barr could have taken an approach that would make him an ACLU iconoclast, stirring up that organization from the inside, by addressing real threats to civil liberties - for example, by taking on the IRS (which is the ultimate threat to our freedoms), by standing up for gun rights, etc. Instead he foolishly gives an introductory speech for Al Gore's nonsense, and jumps on the Al Quaeda/Demo-Commie bandwagon on the faux "domestic surveillance" issue.

[RobFromGa]

Bob Barr is no more a Conservative then Zell Miller is a Liberal. Unfortunately, he gets called one by the Dinosaur Media so I guess it is true. He can't ride on his Impeachment Manager record forever.

[DaGman]

It has to be said. Barr was a Clinton impeachment manager. He obviously respects the rule of law. The law is the law. Conservatives are about, among other things, the unambiguous rule of law. Claiming Al-Queda connections does not excuse illegally wiretapping American citizens. The law has to mean something or the law means nothing, regardless of party. This is about the rule of law and the constitution. Barr is right on the money.

[logician2u]

The once-understood term, "conservative," has over the past five years lost just about all its meaning.

It was much clearer when the Republican party had stalwarts such as Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan to set the course. You could easily tell their commitment to conservative principles simply by listening for the howls from the northeast liberal Republicans (Keating, Javits, Case, Brooke) in response to what they said or did.

These days, anyone who voices opposition to the leader is labeled a liberal, a communist or a traitor by the Republican sheep. It is no longer the same party I once worked in.

[Havoc]

Apparently, every conservative is a conservative until they say something about Bush that ya'll don't like or disagree with ya'll on some point. Tell me, is there anyone folks here won't smear to protect their boy? Barr went to the matt for every one of you here long before W imagined being president. How short your memories all are. I would expect you to at least give him a fair hearing and note that you may disagree.
But you trash him as though he were yesterday's news. IMHO, you don't deserve what he did for all of us.