Death to Principles

The commentary that oozes forth from the "conservatives" continues to revolt:

The way I see it, whoever runs against Hillary Clinton deserves to win. So far as I'm concerned, those Republicans who threaten to stay home on Election Day in 2008 if their personal favorite isn't the nominee, just so they can self-righteously claim they didn't violate their principles, are beneath contempt. Cutting off your nose to spite America is not commendable. It's my conviction that anyone who permits this country to be saddled with a left-wing Medusa surrenders all claims of moral superiority.

In short, I am not one of those people who would care to have engraved on his tombstone: Here Lies Burt Prelutsky Who Never Voted for the Lesser of Two Evils.

I say let America be spited. If Giuliani was a democrat, the conservatives would be stumbling all over themselves to support Romney so that we didn't have "to be saddled with a left-wing Medusa". Seriously, on what issues do Hillary and Giuliani disagree? Why should we be proud to support an evil which is indistinguishable from its opponent?

There is nothing in the creed of a conservative which purports to stand with those who will defeat Islamo-fascism, or whatever we are calling it these days. And, for the record, Hillary seems to take the threat of Islamo-whateverism very seriously, at least in the sense that she's not necessarily opposed to nuking Iran or waging other stupid and immoral wars in the middle east.

But the most appalling thing about all of the people who insist we support Giuliani is that they do so, not out of an even vague affinity for common principle--though they do insist that his stance on terror is enough, which demonstrates how bereft of principles they actually are--but out of pure Machiavellian pragmatism. We should support Giuiliani because he can win; and we should shun Ron Paul because he cannot. Even supposing that in an election between two identical candidates the public will vote for the candidate who rides the weaker coat-tails of the traitorous president Bush, a patent absurdity, such an appeal is still remarkably base. It benefits a man naught to gain the world at the cost of his soul; what on earth could come of gaining the presidency at the same cost?