Praxxus speculates on the libertarian response to Scalito:
It will be interesting to see how many card carrying, Ayn Rand worshipping libertarians manage to overlook the "expanded police state" aspects of the Alito nomination so they can fervently froth in favor of his hard core right-wing credentials.Rather than go with the obvious answer ("just about every goddamn one of them"), I thought I'd see what the usual conservatarian suspects are saying so far:
- John Cole seems undecided but inclined to be positive.
- Julian Sanchez doesn't endorse Scalito outright, but does argue that Scalito is less wingnutty than ThinkProgress says he is. (In fairness to Sanchez, I have to admit that the ThinkProgress talking points often overstate the case.)
- Ann Althouse says Scalito is a "stronger choice than John Roberts"
- Orin Kerr of the Volokh Conspiracy is very pleased
- So is Todd Zywicki.
Praxxus 1, conservatarian intellectual honesty 0.
Update: One of John Cole's commenters lays out the template for conservatarian rationalization:
While Doe vs. Groody is a libertarian nightmare, you also need to consider that conservatives really don’t pay much attention to the 4th amendment. On the flip side, we do have a guy who is strongly 1st amendment and 2nd amendment – something a Democrat nominee would not be.
Basically, if you’re a libertarian, you need to take the good with the bad – i.e. you’re not gonna get the perfect libertarian candidate from each of the parties, but you’re gonna get some good with that bad.
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