A Stitch in Haste

Mr. Gravel's advocacy of universal health care, paid for with a national retail sales tax, could turn off some Libertarians.

Gee, you think?

Of course, the easy retort regarding Mike Gravel's announcement that he is seeking the Big-L Libertarian Party presidential nomination is, "Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good." But that assumes that there's a cognizable quantum of "good" ex ante. This was the sleight-of-hand that Ron Paul's apologists tried to pull: "Sure he's a raging anti-gay and anti-Hispanic bigot who thinks that the Bill of Rights does not apply to states and that the Fourteenth Amendment is fictional. But other than that he's a libertarian's dream candidate!" (It was also the embarrassing maneuver Jamie Kirchick tried in his recent nauseating semi-endorsement of John McCain.)

As for whether Gravel is even a small-l libertarian, let alone a viable Big-L Libertarian presidential nominee, I think nationalizing unbridled majoritarianism, imposing socialized medicine and mandating universal pre-K pretty much point to "Um, no." But if other libertarians want to assign a higher weight to his consistent opposition to the War in Iraq, the War on Drugs and the War on Gays, then that is their (hardly absurd) prerogative. Gravel is undeniably light-years beyond Ron Paul in terms of his libertarian bona fides. But that's not saying much.

As for me, I still need a bit more "good" before I'll betray the "perfect."