A lot of people used to refer to this page (still available via Google cache) to get some basic facts about Bob Barr’s record. However the information is no longer available. Why, you might ask? It appears Barr has sent his lawyers after the site owner in an attempt to censor the truth:
For those of you who have come to rely on the information provided by me regarding libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr, I’m sorry to say I will no longer be providing that for your enjoyment and enlightenment. On June 3, 2008, I received a letter from a law firm retained by the Bob Barr campaign, telling me I don’t have a right to post information about the presidential candidate on this website. ( click here to view the letter )To comply with their wishes and maintain compliance with ICANN, I have taken down all content related to the libertarian candidate until this matter can be resolved.
Facts that were presented on the site included:
- Worked for the CIA
- Former drug war prosecutor
- Member of the Speaker’s Task Force for a Drug-Free America
- Authored and sponsored the Defense of Marriage Act, a law enacted in 1996 which states that only marriages that are between a man and a woman can be federally recognized
- Voted for the Patriot Act
- Proposed that the Pentagon ban the practice of Wicca in the military
What do you suppose he is so afraid of?
I read the letter, and they wanted the website taken down (and turned over to them) because the url is his name. It is therefore unlikely that he will try that stunt with any other site.
That being said, no real libertarian would do what Barr has done, since that website is private property.
Elf – that website was up way before Barf even considering running for prez. In fact, it was a pro-Barf site. I hardly consider that a “stunt”.
I was referring to what Barr did as a “stunt”, not what the site owner did. As far as I’m concerned, the site is the site owner’s property, and he/she can do whatever they please with it.
I read the letter – all that’s needed is the appropriate disclaimer. The content you had on there is all public record stuff.
They’ve got a legitimate concern – most people expect ‘famousname.com’ to be affiliated with the actual celebrity they’re ‘named’ for. You’ll likely end up in court over the ownership of the name, although I suspect the LAST thing their campaign wants is that kind of publicity.
That portion of their letter is nothing but an attempt to ‘bully’ you out of the domain name. I doubt his campaign has the kind of discretionary income needed to embark on a battle like that….but I do find it interesting they want it turned over to the campaign and not to Bob personally.
Funny part? They characterize obviously disparaging data as ‘positive’ for their campaign. Don’t new law school grads have to pass a 3rd grade reading comprehension test?
Much ado about nothing, I say – who’s going to vote for someone who gets duped by one of the most famous characters ever developed? Always beware of foreigners offering cheese!
Good luck with fighting the good fight!
disnter: we all know Barr has changed previous positions. He has been working the past 5 years against the Patriot Act, e.g. not only spoken out against it a few months ago (which would have been Romney/Kerry/McCain like flip-flopping. He cannot change anything about his CIA work, he could just have had a minor role for legal info (his speciality) for the CIA. Not all people working for the CIA are bad!!! If were a director with the CIA (like Bush 1) it would have been a different case, then one could have been suspicious.
Hey, did the CIA also not provided recently info that Iran is not working on nuclear bombs, which the Bush/McCain campaign do not like? And hey, is Ron Paul’s security expert not Michael Scheuer, who played a MAJOR role with the CIA. The CIA also talk about “blowback”, a term which Paul also used.
If you want to bash Barr about his CIA employment history, then you have to bash Paul for his association with Michael Scheuer, bash antiwar.com etc. for having interviews with Scheuer etc. Strangely, I am not aware of such criticism by you (yet?). Or is this a point where you differ with Dr. Paul?
BTW: Dr. Paul also has an ex-FBI leader with him: Ted Gunderson.
Also: yes, we all know Barr does not have the “perfect” voting record at Dr. Paul, but he has changed, Dr. Paul trust him and consider as friend and said he would be a good candidate for the LP. (youtube). And then, is not not a very convincing and strong argument to persuade people who think the LP is a bunch of liberal potheads, hippies, wacko’s, security-ignorants etc. to know someone who once supported the Patriot Act etc. has turned against them. If they hear such criticism from someone in the LP that they consider as left-wing, who has always been against it, they are not bound to take so much note than someone who was a leader in the warm on drugs, voted for the Patriot Act etc. that rethought and reconsidered it and now vehemently opposed to the Patriot Act, worked with
the ACLU also on the MPP? Would he not be more able to convince such people (social conservatives) ??? Think about it..
Why don’t you visit the LP meeting in texas, meet Barr and see for yourself whether you can trust him, ask him questions etc.
You are smart, you know talk is cheap and easy, but non-verbal action and practise speak volumes. When you meet him in person you will be able to detect if what he is saying is made-up, or really truthful and sincere, through his nonverbal reaction.
You would not be smart if you would just take everything about Barr for granted indeed, but you would also not be smart if you are also not open to be persuaded by Barr’s sincerity, just as Barr was open to listen to the LP and other views and change his views.
Also: he has a history of libertarian thought in any case, was not known already years ago as “Mr. Privacy” as nickname (just like Dr. Paul is Dr. No) for no reason whatsoever.
I noticed Paul, Ruwart and Barr, among others, will be at this year’s freedomfest in July also..
Yes, that is why he voted FOR the patriot act, voted FOR illegal wars of aggression and voted AGAINST religious freedom.
REAL libertarian thinking there…
Would you consider selling the BobBarr.com web domain?
Yeah Sell it. Offer to sell it for 20k frn’s and then be willing to sell it for 12k frn’s Walk away laughing and then buy another name and put the info back up.
Chuck Baldwin for President 2008!!!
first two links on this page r dead. Guess the strings got pulled.
I’ve been a libertarian for some time before Barr came along and I’m not sure whether I want him in office or not. I know he won’t win and I’m pretty sure he knows that as well but what it really comes down to during the election is what percentage he can turn out and what kind or information he can get out about the libertarian party. He may not be trustworthy as an ex-republican but he’s charismatic and intellegent which is what our party needs to put us in the public eye. IF he were actually, by some miracle, to win this election, I can’t say he’d actually fully upholld libertarian ideology once in office. I was once a dyed-in-the-wool republican too long ago and I know old habbits die hard. It was a long process for me after I became disinfranchised with the republicans and not some overnight side-swithcing kind of deal. I had to think long and hard about what I really believed in and what the constitution and America really stood for and what Liberty really was before I could make a decision to even join the party.
Perhaps Barr really does believe in the ideology of the libertarian party but I think he needs more time amongst the lower ranks before he takes on a role like president.
As long as he doesn’t do anything rediculous during his time campaigning then he should at least do his job with promoting the libertarian party and its ideas, so long as he actually believes in them and sticks to them. One thing I didn’t like though was his interview on the Colbert show. Where he talks about going to an event with Al Gore and saying how he though Gore was right about global warming. Are you kidding me? Mainstream science can’t even put together a watertight theory on global warming and he wants to back Gore’s crackpot ideas?
Ron Paul has never had to change his stance because of popular opinion in his party….Bob Barf is a politician, Ron Paul is a statesman…..
Bob Barf is a joke as a libertarian candidate and will get almost ZERO support from Paul supporters.
We’re screwed ’08.
“Watch what they do, not what they say” is an axiom too many libertarians keep forgetting. The Libertarian Party should be spanked at the polls for offering a CIA-trained wordpusher who honed his oratorial skills through 3 terms in Congress. Rudyard Kipling put it well – “words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind”. Too many Libertarians also forgot Robert Ringer, who made the libertarian case for one term limits in his 1979 book “Restoring the American Dream”.
If Barr was genuine about libertarianism, he would have never sought the LP nomination in the first place. He knows that he comes with statist baggage and that he would be asking too much of libertarians to trust their former enemy. After he talked his way to a victory in Denver with the help of Yale-educated Wayne Root, scores of Libertarians, including LP state officeholders, quit the LP. Many of those are now libertarian independents supporting Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party, since he is the most libertarian of the candidates.
ANYbody sounds good to people who have never heard of libertarianism if they talk libertarianism! Even Barr sounds good to people who are hearing about libertarianism for the first time in their lives. After Andre Marrou beat Bush, Sr and Clinton after the first primary returns in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire back in ’92 (Marrou made the front page of dailies across the nation), then Daddy Bush’s longtime friend H. Ross Perot, who became the ninth wealthiest man in America by milking government contracts, began talking the very same libertarianism that Andre Marrou had been talking – only Perot said it $50 million dollars LOUDER. After a few short weeks, when Marrou was mentioned by Libertarian campaigners, people responded – “Oh yeah, that billionaire”. The campaigners said, “we said Marrou, not Perot”. “He’s not that billionaire?” they asked. “NO”. “Well who’s Marrou?” THE POINT is that Bush’s buddy got 17% of the vote talking libertarianism, but because he had NO PARTY, he saved America’s Demopublican one-party system. But it cost that filthy rich man $50 million.
Bob Barr is cheaper. He will do to the LP what the statists have always done. Barr said he would get them publicity, and folks believed him because when he announced his candidacy for the LP nominaton, USA Today and other Big City papers publicized Barr’s bid but kept silent on the other candidates. At the convention, too many delegates forgot that the voluntary matrix – mass media, is a cartel controlled by a mere 5 very wealthy billionaires. Those 5 billionaires did not want to spend $50 million to talk over the Libertarian candidate – it was a lot cheaper to print a few plugs on Barr and let Barr then do the rest.
In short, the LP was infiltrated by an ex-CIA official (and he’s not the only ex-CIA employee in the party). Again, the Libertarian Party should be spanked at the polls on November 4th. They should never again turn to a statist wordpusher to preach their agenda.