Blog P.I.

A week has now passed since Brink Lindsey’s so-called “Liberaltarian” essay for The New Republic (also available from Cato, where Lindsey is VP for research) hit the web and became an instant conversation piece around ideo-journalistic Washington.

One can trace the excitement surrounding Lindsey’s essay, and perhaps even the piece itself, to an early June post at Daily Kos, by site founder/show runner Markos Moulitsas. That entry, which he later described as “a throwaway blog post,” drew plenty of snickers from Beltway conservative types, but it certainly wasn’t ignored.

In October, the Cato Institute — typically identified with Republicans far more than Democrats — made Moulitsas’ arguments the centerpiece of the October edition of Cato Unbound. Just before the election, Moulitsas made his pitch for libertarians to pull a lever for the Dems in Reason magazine.

These articles drew plenty more attention, of which Lindsey’s article could be considered the latest entry. One need not buy into the notion of an uneasy left/libertarian fusionism being at all likely to replace the uneasy right/libertarian one to find it interesting — and indeed, for all the kind things said about Lindsey himself this past week, almost everybody’s wallets are staying firmly in pocket.

That’s a lot of pockets, too. Among the libertarians, liberals and conservatives who have weighed in on Lindsey’s essay:

Daniel Drezner Will Wilkinson Stephen Bainbridge Tyler Cowen Sebastian Mallaby Matthew Yglesias Virginia Postrel Ramesh Ponnuru Ezra Klein Todd Zywicki Ilya Somin Julian Sanchez John Derbyshire Tim Lee Kevin Drum Robert Farley John Tabin Jesse Walker Jonah Goldberg Bruce McQuain John Miller Michael Brendan Dougherty

Of course, not everyone who might be expected to comment has done so. Among those who have not weighed in since Lindsey’s article went up:

A blog that is actually called Liberaltarian Markos Moulitsas

It’s not that he’s been away from the site. In fact, he’s posted 55 times (at the time of this writing) and on a wide array of topics, from the inevitability of Obama to general site maintenance. I realize that the pat response to these questions is “don’t complain about the free ice cream.” But I’m curious as to why Moulitsas has abruptly disengaged from the debate.

The cynical view would be that with the election now in the past and Democrats victorious, there is no longer any need to reach out to potential new voters. The slightly less cynical view, and the one I endorse, is that Moulitsas was using the term “libertarian” too loosely in the first place. Go back to his seminal post, and notice that he literally begins by seeking to describe why he likes rugged, outdoorsy, sometimes Mountain West politicians such as Senator-elect Jon Tester — and it goes on to deliberately ignore the profound differences between liberal and libertarian philosophies of government. Altogether, it sounds less like argument born of principles, and more like searching for a coherent way to describe his favored candidates.

Moulitsas’ influence currently runs strongly to matters campaign-related, but the interest surrounding his “Libertarian Democrat” post suggests that people are willing to give him a shot as an actual thinker as well. Alas, now that the liberaltarian concept has “crashed the gates” (if you will) it would seem he doesn’t have much more to add. (He announced in the June post that his “next book” will be about the libertarian Democrat. Is that still a go?) Unless he has the conviction to defend his arguments in the public ’sphere — or a whole lot more “throwaway” ideas — he may again find himself relegated to being just what he says he doesn’t want to be: An ATM for Democratic campaigns.

P.S. Does anybody else remember that at one time, Brink Lindsey was a blogger? His former site remains where it always was, the blogroll still a who’s who of the early right-libertarian blogosphere. His his final post in mid-2003 should be considered a classic of the genre. Excerpted:

I’ve lost the will to blog. Actually, I lost it some time ago, but I’ve been trudging along in hopes that I would find new inspiration. I haven’t. So enough. I’m hanging it up for a while. I plan to take the summer off — at least. Maybe I’ll come back in the fall, maybe I won’t.

I’ve argued before that one need not actually be a blogger to be a part of the blogosphere, and three years later, Lindsey’s currency reinforces that.