William Safire

The only person in the world more convinced of a Saddam-al Qaeda connection than Dick Cheney is NY Times columnist and former Nixon speechwriter William Safire. He has grasped at every straw and empty warhead in Iraq as evidence that Saddam had WMD's. But when it comes to civil liberties, he's got it right. He just wrote another good column on the subject, trying to remind conservatives that libertarianism used to be a core element of their philosophy, not Aschroftian fearmongering.

I just wish Safire would make the connection that Orwell made--that war and suspension of civil liberties almost always go together. If you truly believe in individual rights, you should oppose wars, especially optional ones.

Safire even seems to concede some ground on his Saddam-al Qaeda and WMD stubbornness with his concluding sentence: "It's uncool to say I told you so, but I have not had many chances to say it lately."

I think there are a lot of libertarian types out there, and any sober reflection of what Bush and Ashcroft have done in the past years should convince them that this administration is not for them. Just keeping the second amendment shouldn't be enough for a true libertarian--she's going to want the whole Bill of Rights.