Noemie Emery says that social conservatives will live with Giuliani. I don’t know whether she’s right, but conservatives and Republicans are often more serious about power than liberals and Democrats. They’re not crazy, and they can compromise if needs be. But check this out on the "litmus test" right:
Some day their prince may come – the conservative who hits all the bases – pro-life, pro-supply side, pro-tax cuts, pro-deregulation, and hawkish in foreign policy – but this day is not it, and that day may never arrive.
Er: who was George W. Bush? Didn’t he pass every litmus test she mentions? Or is he now being erased from conservative history? Then there’s this passage about why disenchanted Bush supporters are open to Rudy:
They see him as a more ruthless version of George W. Bush, someone who would not have consented to less-than-aggressive rules of engagement; who would have taken Falluja the first time, and not have had to come back later; who would not have let Sadr escape when he had him; who would not have been fazed by whining over Abu Ghraib and Club Gitmo, and would have treated critics of the armed forces and of the mission with the same impatience he showed critics of the police in New York. As nothing else, the terror war sits at a nexus of issues dear to the heart of the base: the need to use force when one’s country is threatened; the need to make judgments between good and evil; the need to protect and assert the moral codes of the Judeo-Christian tradition; the need to defend the ideals of the West.
Whining about Abu Ghraib?
The Dish 