How Libertarian Is Gary Johnson?

[John_James]

@ThatOldGuy

(who is Wenzel by the way? I can’t find a biography- I’ve only found this audio which he references in the interview of him at the New York Fed as well as a few podcasts)

As I said, he’s basically an old codger who doesn’t give a shit, and has a serious crush on Murray Rothbard. (As in, like Cartman on Mel Gibson serious.) He was in the finance/investment/advisory world for a while, made a bunch of money from that from what I understand, and basically has a lot of world experience to speak of, and pretty good knowledge of global events and a decent understanding of Austrian theory to apply it all to. He does this at his blog EconomicPolicyJournal.com, which I recommended here.

He’s only done his “Robert Wenzel Show” a handful of times. He started it as a weekly thing toward the end of last year, after he, like I said, ended up on Peter Schiff’s show looking like Gary Johnson did this show. (You can read through that thread starting at that post to get a nice rundown/discussion.) You can see a list of his past RWS episodes here. You should be able to get some background from him in those. The December 4 episode should be especially educational.

His blog has been around for some years now, and is consistantly flirting with the top 10 libertarian sites on the web. His first appearance on The Peter Schiff Show was almost a year ago now, Tom Woods had him on when he was guest-hosting. After that Wenzel came on again that one time with Schiff, looked like an ignoramus, and only recently came back on again a few weeks ago…with Tom Woods hosting.

You can find collections of good posts from his blog here.

Regarding Wenzel, I think that his conduct was also less than exemplary. Being totally unfamiliar with the man I can understand that, as a radio host, he provides political/economic content as well as entertainment to keep his audience focused on him, but he treated Johnson pretty poorly. Wenzel seemed to noticeably get impatient and condescending towards Johnson -who, despite ignorance on some issues, is still a grown man running for political office- by resorting to a sort of I know a lot about the Austrian School and you need to read a bit more, ok? attitude throughout much of the show.

Oh yeah. Like I said,

1. Wenzel is an old codger who doesn’t give a shit, and

2. The whole reason he asked for this interview was to hang Johnson out to dry.

Wenzel isn’t that bad but his style of commentary is reminiscent of Levin).

Yeah Wenzel isn’t as vindictive as Levin, and this is not something he usually does, I honestly think it’s just a combination of (a) him not really giving a shit, (b) him honestly not having much tact and not being a very good personal communicator, (c) him wanting to expose Johnson

I think there may have been a bit of “I’m better than you” going on there, but I do really believe most of his suggestion-session was in good faith and he was really trying to urge Johnson to look into it. (Not that he did a good job, and like I said he actually could have very well turned Johnson off, but I tend to believe he was mostly honestly trying to get him to study more. Mostly.)

On the other hand, Johnson’s interview noticeably lacked interesting content and Johnson seemed almost uninterested in answering some questions by responding to them with brief answers that show either a lack of information on the subject at hand or with unsatisfying answers that elicit follow-up questions from Wenzel for Johnson to back up his assertions [after mentioning Milton Friedman as one of his most influential libertarian figures],

Yeah I think that was mostly just a product of Johnson’s ignorance. Mostly. I think partly Wenzel had a bit to do with it because he, (like Schiff) uses opportunities like this anywhere he can get them, as guys who know as much stuff as they do (especially guys who have as clear an understanding of the world as they do, and are surrounded by idiots) have a real need to get it all out. So like I was saying here about Peter, I think it’s pretty cathartic for Wenzel…which leads to him talking more than he should. (Of course, when your guest is spewing nonsense, I guess it’s important to make sure you set the record straight…particularly when you invited him on specifically so that you could set him straight.)

Like the Friedman thing…I doubt Wenzel knew Johnson was going to go that far off the deep end…literally claiming Friedman advocated ending a practice which he in reality essentially pushed for the advent of…but it’s basically what Wenzel was looking for. I’m surprised he didn’t hit him harder on the foreign policy issue, as Wenzel is of course well aware of how weak Johnson is there. But then again, that may have been a result of Johnson’s basic non-answers leaving Wenzel with little opportunity.

The Mises Institute question was a gimme too. Wenzel wanted to expose Johnson for not being aquainted with the Institute, and of course Johnson isn’t, so he of course couldn’t elaborate out any answers. But that also means he wasn’t about to say anything negative and open the door for Wenzel to jump on him. So you get a “terrific” answer. And as you could see Wenzel just doesn’t have the interviewer chops to jiujitsu that into the dialog he wanted. This is what happens when “just anybody” starts their own radio show.