Ramesh Ponnuru On The March

Ramesh, as the conservative movement's chief apologist for Senator McCain, the guy who repealed the First Amendment and would, given the chance, impose federal government ovesight on professional baseball, maybe cheap-date jokes about us Giuliani supporters are not your best approach.

Andy, I'm not sure "apologist" is quite the right term here. In the article to which you allude, I acknowledged McCain's flaws, at length, weighed them against his virtues and those of his rivals, judged him the best choice, and encouraged conservatives to pull him closer to their camp on some issues.

For a contrasting approach to a candidate, see this article, with which you may be familiar. The author gets quite purple about his favored candidate's "unique combination of vision, guts, and perseverance," devotes exactly one sentence to his flaws--and that sentence put at one remove, as though the author himself can't acknowledge that flaws might exist--and does not suggest that conservatives should try to move said candidate rightward.