Bob Barr's Conversion

After the House last week passed a repeal of the 1998 Barr Amendment, which blocked the implementation of a ballot-won medical marijuana legalization policy in Washington, DC, Wendy Kaminer points out at her Atlantic Correspondents blog that former Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.), now a Libertarian, supported the repeal.


Kaminer doesn't quite trust Barr's metamorphosis, however:

Maybe Barr had a genuine conversion experience after leaving Congress; maybe he was always a closet libertarian successfully passing as a right wing extremist; maybe he's a cynical opportunist whose shifting allegiances anticipated the power shifts reflected in the '06 and '08 elections.  I welcome his newly found or recently uncovered libertarianism, in any case; but -- like the Sotomayor confirmation follies or the extra-marital escapades of Senatorial bible thumpers -- the spectacle of Bob Barr lobbying against his former self seems unlikely to increase or restore faith in the legislative process. 
   
From afar, it looks merely like self-interested gamesmanship, which may be partly why people sometimes combine low opinions of Congress with relatively high opinions of their own representatives...