O Insurgente

Enter the Barr – Another candidate throws his hat in the presidential ring.

NRO: Do you believe that the American people would lose more of their freedoms under one of them, or aren’t they distinct in your view?

BARR: They’re distinct in my view. They certainly do support somewhat different programs. For example, Sen. McCain has indicated that it would be his predisposition to remain in Iraq as an occupying force for the foreseeable future. Sen. Obama has indicated that would not be his predisposition. I think in terms of expanding the growth of entitlement programs, Sen. Obama would be more predisposed in that direction than Sen. McCain.

Sen. McCain probably would be marginally better on tax cuts, as he does indicate that he now supports the Bush tax cuts that he did not earlier. Sen. McCain has indicated that he does not favor earmarks, but he really has not taken any significant stance opposed to government spending generally and has not indicated that he would move in the direction of significantly moving to decrease the size of the federal government in terms of the amount of money that it takes from the American people and the amount of money that it spends.

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NRO: Okay, so let’s say you’re a voter who votes purely on the issue of fiscal discipline. Why would this voter choose you over John McCain, who has run on a platform of massively cutting government spending and vetoing any bill that has an earmark?

BARR: Earmarks are not the most serious problem in terms of the cost and the size of the federal government. They represent a very small percentage of government spending. One could do away with every earmark and yet barely make a perceptible ripple in the cost of government. John McCain, if you go to his website, for example, you see nothing specific in terms of significant cuts in government spending. You know, it’s pretty easy to rail against pork and earmarks, and that’s fine, that’s great. But it does not represent the muscle of eating away at federal spending. It’s going to take a lot more than that, and Sen. McCain does not have the record that would indicate to me that he would significantly cut the size and the cost of the federal government.

NRO: Okay, and then on the flip side, let’s say you’re a voter who votes purely on the issue of the Iraq war. Why would this voter choose you over Barack Obama?

BARR: Because what we need is somebody who understands, as I do — I’ve worked in the intelligence business for a number of years, served in the Congress, lived and worked overseas — who understands the fact that you cannot — and it represents very poorly conceived public policy to believe — that through the force of the U.S. military and at significant cost to U.S. taxpayers, that it’s either appropriate or feasible to build a nation in the image of a democratic society where there is absolutely no history or understanding of participatory government in the first place. It also represents the administration’s policy, for example, a failed policy of believing that if you provide a security blanket for a foreign regime, that they are going to move in the direction of taking a hold of and being responsible for their own economy, their own political system, and their own security.

The difference, I suppose, more than anything else, between my view of how to extricate the United States from Iraq specifically and these sorts of adventures in the first place is that I don’t think Sen. Obama has really a credible consistency in the fundamental notion that we should not occupy and build foreign nations. When one looks, for example, at the full scope of his statements and positions on these issues, one is struck not so much by the fact that he would not engage and not use U.S. military and economic might to build nations, but he simply disagrees with doing it in Iraq. I think we ought to have a consistent policy of a more defense-oriented national-defense policy and one that does not engage in nation-building whether it’s in the Middle East, in Africa, or in the Balkans.