Common Ground With . . . Bob Barr?!

Bob Barr is a hard-right wing former representative from Georgia. We doubt there's much we would agree on.

It's always pleasant, however, when someone from the other side surprises you with an unexpectedly enlightened position.

And so, today, we have Bob Barr writing on the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal, in "Don't Ask, Who Cares," to chastise the GOP Presidential wannabes who, in their anti-gay pandering, refused even to endorse lifting the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays.

Barr says "we can no longer afford to bar gays from the military" and even goes so far as state the proposition that "equal treatment of gay and lesbian service members is about as conservative a position as one cares to articulate." While we doubt many conservatives agree with him on the latter point--and indeed Barr's virulent brand of hard-core conservatism is in part responsible for the cowardly positions of the Republican Prez candidates--we're happy to see some realization on the right that discouraging qualified gays from military service is a self-defeating proposition.