This column, by Michael Kinsley, provides some interesting data and analysis on which party does a better job of actually delivering on the Republican party’s stated principles of smaller government. And the answer is: it’s the Dems.

Unless you’re a faith-based believer in smaller government, the answer seems obvious: vote Democratic.

I would definitely criticize someone for playing the race card and then refer to the black candidate multiple times as “boy…” Needless to say, your own post is thick with the lies being spread by McCain’s supporters, including this raise taxes on everyone claim. By almost all accounts, 95 percent of people will be paying less taxes.

Republicans have been responsible for the biggest government this nation has seen in decades – you claim to support small government, and yet you support the Republican Party, a group which creates enormous government…it’s almost as if you’re being unbelievably inconsistent.

I’m definitely a small-l libertarian (less government- hell, yeah!) but not a doctinaire fool. Supporting McC-P over Oboy is not even a stretch.

In short, there is no way the the Reps are going to control Congress. With a Dem Congress and a (FAR, FAR, FAR LEFT) Dem President, all those wonderful government programs we all love, like gun control, a US NHS, and higher, higher taxes to support all the new “transfer payment” programs he’s already promised will zip through in the proverbial 100 days. Has anyone here actually listened to his stump speech about everything he’s going to fix – and we’ll pay for?

McC-P is going to face a hostile Congress, with all that means – less goverment than otherwise. Come on, gridlock!!!

Look, if you want to vote your “conscience” and pull the lever for Barr… that’s understandable. But to actually vote for Oboy… I hope you don’t get your wish, but if you do, I predict you won’t be able to look at yourself in the mirror by about mid-March.

It really does seem that Republicans have some serious selective filtering that occurs.

They’re acting just like Hillary supporters, for crying out loud.

Les, there are times I wish this site had a mechanism for two thumbs up.

Officials using their power to settle personal scores, going out of their way to avoid transparency, and making decisions of questionable legality based on their religious or moral views is anathema to the fundamentals of libertarianism. Combine that with serious intellectual laziness, and you’re left with a large, inefficient, intrusive government that can’t be held accountable.

If that doesn’t bother you than that’s fine, but it’s certainly a very reasonabe concern for some to have. I think there are tons of reasons why libertarians can’t be crazy about Obama, but after the most unlibertarian president in history, a man who never saw a law he had to follow, who viewed the Constitution as an outdated suggestion, who essentially promoted incompetence and inneficiency and avoided accountability in every possible way including illegal ones, I’d think a libertarian would be inclined to vote for the candidate who was most likely to submit himself ot the rule of law and care about whether his conduct conformed to the limits layed out in the Constitution. Seems clear to me that that guy is Obama.

And Honeyko, if you can explain the difference between removing a book from a public library because of its content and “forbid[ding] a certain work to be read” I’ll send you a nice shiny quarter.

http://syrin.vox.com/

It appears to re-hash (or to be the source of) the NYT’s claims with little factual evidence or documentation to back up the claims.

The nice thing about beliefs are that you don’t question them because they’re The Truth. Facts aren’t needed. Life becomes very simple. And people who don’t agree are Wrong. And need to be Corrected.

Leaders like this are what made the 20th century a bloodbath.

On Biden: he was raked over the coals by the press when he first ran for president (and ridden out of the race on a rail) because, although he had cited Neil Kinnock on numerous occasions when he borrowed a bit from one of Kinnock’s speeches, on one occasion he forgot to do so, and Broder and Dowd ran to the presses to call him a plagiarist.

What really irks conservatives, I think, is that for the first time in many, many years, the press actually admires a Democratic candidate, instead of making up crap about him for kicks (see, for example, the press’s treatment of Al Gore from 1998 on). McCain called the press his “base.” That’s clearly changing, and, well, you’re right to be scared, because it’s the best thing that McCain had going for him.

If Palin can’t stand the heat– oops, I was going to say she should get out of the kitchen, but you’d probably call that comment sexist.

According to the AP:

When Obama was organizing his first race for the state legislature [in 1995], the incumbent lawmaker he hoped to replace introduced him to her supporters and urged them to back Obama. One introductory event took place at the home of Ayers and Dohrn, according to published reports. Ayers contributed $200 to Obama’s legislative campaign in 2001, but there is no other sign that he has actively aided Obama’s political career.

Although McCain has not expressed sympathy for these views, he’s clearly aligning himself with a movement against reproductive liberty whose central tenet– that life begins at conception– has been used to justify murder, just like Ayers justified his bombings (which he insists did not hurt anyone, although the Greenwich Village bomb which killed Weather Undergound members was probably meant to do so).

Ad hominem attacks on a presidential or vice presidential candidate are all well and good– these folks should be scrutinized. Ad hominem attacks on them via ad hominem attacks on someone who hosted a fundraiser for them 13 years ago are a pretty obvious attempt to change the topic from what really matters.