A libertarian should be for divided government if he can’t vote for an actual libertarian.

http://hayhurstforamerica.wordpress.com/2008/09/04/interview-with-tucker-carlson/

I wrote a bunch about federalism before and during the war because it was an area in which I had a comparative intellectual advantage, and I continue to think that federalism is the sine qua non for any tolerably peaceful, tolerably just outcome in Iraq– neither partition nor a unitary state has *any* chance of success– but ‘necessary’ is nothing close to ’sufficient.’

Palin’s remark that she didn’t need focus groups because she knew those voters, and “their families, too” (gotta get “family” in there whenever possible!) is worse than irrelevant. It undercuts the argument for her candidacy. As the nation’s no. 2 exec she won’t be personally acquainted with all her constituents. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt if she knew how to gauge public opinion a little better. Or at least had a bit more regard for it. It is, after all, representative democracy that she is hoping lead.

Tomorrow, though, I will address the McCainotista phenomenon, which may be more important than the Palineoconservatives. (Carry on without me until then.)

http://jacobtlevy.blogspot.com/2008/09/being-put-on-couch-my-friend-todd.html

Let me add that if I say “war guilt,” I don’t mean it quite the accusatory way a dove would, since I was hopeful Iraq would go well myself and was pretty approving of how the earlier Afghanistan venture was handled, especially its early waiting/ultimatum period during which the Taliban could have coughed up al Qaeda members. On Iraq, I fell back on the “When in doubt, don’t go” position but was enthusiastic during the “democracy, whiskey, sexy” phase and still resist drawing rigid Ron Paul-like anti-interventionist conclusions.

(And I may yet win a bet next year with Chris about outcomes in both Afghanistan and Iraq.)

I thought that Saddam Hussein probably had WMDs, and thought that the U.N. disarmament regime that he kicked out in ‘98 was creating an untenable situation in which only the threat of force would convince France and Russia to allow in weapons inspectors…. But I didn’t want Bush’s bluff to be called. I held open the possibility (and in fact still do) that in the long historical sweep of things, removing one of the world’s worst dictators and replacing him with a better system might be a net positive, regardless of the severe costs.

I’m certainly not *proud* of that position, but I don’t feel any “guilt.” At any rate, I’m not pro-Obama by any stretch, don’t know who I’ll vote for, and my unwillingness to vote for McCain is almost entirely based on his expansive, unipolar, and muscular sense of foreign policy.

A more obvious turnaround in the cases of McArdle and the almost schizophrenic Sullivan (who seems to have snapped around the time Bush/Rove decided to use the gay marriage issue and then started even finding stupid “Bush is dumb” jokes he’d once denounced funny, etc.).

Jacob was never fond of Bush but initially hoped Iraq would go well — then again, he’d like the “federalist solution” idea for Iraq, as did Biden of all people, come to think of it, so I do not doubt Jacob could write an essay-length defense of his internal consistency, with footnotes and stuff, as them Eastern elites are prone to do, even up in Montreal, which ain’t in the U.S.