Penny-Wise, Pound Foolish - Tim

Penny-Wise, Pound Foolish - Tim Penny, along with Dean Barkley, has always been one of the wizards behind the curtain in the Emerald Palace of the Ventura Administration.

And once upon a time, his moderate-DFL ideas seemed intrigueing to me, as a conservative. His book seemed to indicate his mind was at least open to some common-sense conservative ideas - he was skeptical of the DFL Sacrament of Abortion, he said Gun Control was just plain ineffective, and he seemed to be a genuine "moderate" - whatever that is - on fiscal issues. At least his association with the Cato Institute on fiscal matters seemed mildly encouraging to some of us small-"L" libertarians.

So for those of us who've been calling the Independence Party "DFL Lite", seeing how the Penny candidacy would shake out has been an interesting waiting game.

But not any more. He's scuttled away from his relatively courageous and intelligent stances on many issues - away and to the left. He's still DFL Lite, but not all that Lite anymore. He'd probably fit into the DFL, still.

And people think he'll steal votes from Pawlenty? Only among people who don't think very hard about these things - in other words, among those who elected Ventura in the first place. Who weren't going to vote for Pawlenty, or Moe, or (I suspect) Tim Penny either.

Hillary! Blasts Off - Senator Hillary! Rodham-Clinton, authoritarian-Democrat from New York, seems to be touchy about the real-world implications of the Russ Feingold's Speech Rationing bill.