Congressman Bob Barr, the outspoken ultra-conservative Republican from Georgia lost his primary race Tuesday by a significant margin. Barr, a former U.S. attorney, was swept into Congress in the 1994 GOP takeover, "Contract on America." (our words, not the AP's.)

We're not sorry he's lost. Here's a few examples why:

In November 1998, an initiative in the District of Columbia tried to approve medical marijuana. " For almost a year no one knew whether the referendum had passed, because Rep. Bob Barr (R., Ga.) impounded the $ 1.65 it would have cost to tally the vote. Finally, last September, the courts overruled Barr. Seven out of ten D.C. voters had decided in favor of legalization. Refusing defeat, Barr pushed a bill through Congress that blocked the spending needed to enact the new law. As fallback, Barr has also proposed a joint resolution of Congress to simply overturn by fiat the will of the people expressed freely and fairly at the ballot box. " (Harper's Magazine December 1, 1999, available on Lexis.com )

On April 24, 1997, in a prepared statement to the House Appropriations Committee, again on medical marijuana, also available on Lexis, he said:

"Knowing how hard it is for you as appropriators to find the limited money you have to fund critically important items like the Law Enforcement Commission, I was thunderstruck by a recent proposal from the Administration's Drug Czar to spend $1 million on an absurd study to evaluate the so called "medicinal" uses of marijuana. We ought not to do this ever, especially when we have so many truly pressing law enforcement needs. I have prepared an amendment that would restrict any anti-drug money from being used for such a study. "

He also has been an ardent (to put it mildly) supporter of the death penalty for drug kingpins.

We're not sorry to see Bob leave Congress. We suspect he'll be a political analyst on Fox in no time, just like Newt, probably in time for the November elections.