I have been purged.

If you have reservations about Sarah Palin, you have been purged by Robert Stacy McCain :
http://spectator.org/blog/2008/10/28/the-sarah-party

If you are one of the purgees, don't be surprised. This is really not unprecedented. National Review, in the '60s, used to haul itself up as the judge of all "true" conservatives. They made sure to loudly denounce Birchers on the one hand and Randites (Objectivists) on the other. They were quite the opposite of the big tent. So, I suppose it is fitting that the son of the great purger himself (WFB) finds himself purged. And for what better reason than a completely arbitrary one? Notice, it is not about principle, not about small government, or the free market, or protection of private property...nope, it just comes down to whether you can swallow hard and vote for a clearly unprepared candidate. That's it. That's the new shibboleth.

So, I hope Republicans and Conservatives, now that you have purged me and all other libertarian leaning voters from the GOP, that you have great fun by yourselves in the loser's column, because that is where you have consigned yourselves for the foreseeable future.Still, 'tis a strange standard to raise, this Sarah Palin test.

I remember seeing the women of the right in the '80s, when I came to the movement, women like Margaret Thatcher and Jeane Kirkpatrick and Peggy Noonan. These women were full of substance and presence. They were not vapid cheerleaders who could mouth a bunch of rightist platitudes with a smile and a wink. They didn't wail against the media and cry about being misportrayed as lightweight. They didn't need "fair treatment." They went into the fray and gave better than they got. Who here thinks that Jeane Kirkpatrick could be set on her heels by Katie Couric? This is what we have been reduced to, defending a third stringer who has no business at the national level. I am not waiting to be purged. I'm out. Will the last libertarian turn off the lights, please?