Buyers Remorse at Cato?

I've written here before about my affinity for The Cato Institute, the premier libertarian think-tank in DC. I think they are intellectually honest, and they generally do a good job of helping to shape major policy debates by representing the all-important "small government/individual rights" view. Besides that, my homey Dr. C is a big wig there.

That said, I came across this little doozie on the Cato website this morning, dropped there by another big-wig, David Boaz. In it, Boaz brings our attention to yet another encroachment of big-Washington government upon our daily lives, an initiative to have the Feds provide oversight to subway systems.

I'm glad Boaz and Cato are on the beat here--but they simply don't have the standing to do so, given that Cato was an intellectual birthplace of Liberaltarianism, the fusion of liberal principles and libertarianism that rose up as a reaction to some of George Bush's policies. What I'm getting at here is while strict libertarians may have had some issues with GWB (as did strict Conservatives for that matter), did they really think they'd get anywhere in a one-night stand with modern American liberals? Did they really think that once they got in power, the left would suddenly transmogrify into a free-market, low regulation, bong-hit supporting movement (well, I suppose they are getting a little return on their investment in the Administration's treatment of medical pot)?

Libertarians need to make peace with the fact that they'll always be unhappy politically, because neither of the parties goes far enough for them, and neither of the major movements (conservatism or liberalism) aligns closely enough either. But the plain truth of the matter is that the Republican Party and the Conservative movement will always be closer to Libertarians--even when Libertarians try to make us jealous by "sleeping around".