Another reader chimes in:
I don’t know how the reader whose letter you posted can see Bush as in any way libertarian. Does s/he not remember the state of the union address where he called for mandatory drug testing for high school students? Does s/he not remember that he federalized crime by signing the partial birth abortion ban? Does s/he not remember that he favors state intervention into a woman’s womb, or that he was appalled by the Lawrence decision or favored sodomy laws while Governor of Texas? Does s/he not think that anti-smoking laws are just as much products of the puritan right as of the politically correct left? Did s/he not notice that Bush was itching to re-up the assault rifle ban? Or that he has used federal dollars for “faith based initiatives” which could impede both the establishment clause as well as the equal protection clause when homos are able to be disriminated against? Where in anything that Bush has done is the spirit of John Stuart Mill, John Locke or Ronald Reagan?
I’m with this guy. Bush, of course, never pretended to be much of a small government libertarian type, and he shouldn’t be blamed for misrepresenting himself. But he has certainly disappointed that wing of the party more profoundly than anyone I know expected.
The Dish 