[Ohioan]

If a group is going to stab the GOP in the back every time they don't get 101% of what they want,

Do you really believe that we owe a greater duty to the party than to the Country; a greater loyalty to the party, than to our sacred oaths to uphold the Constitution (see the President's record on Medicare, Education, post-war Iraq, AIDS in Africa, etc.); a greater duty to the party, than to the continuity of the American people (immigration control); a greater duty to the party, than to the moral principles that have governed Western peoples in all the basically good and sound decisions they have made over the centuries (for example, the President's forcing Ashcroft to back down and let the Justice Department's militants mock Western morality with Gay Pride weeks, etc.)?

Take a deep breath, and start to put things in proportion. The party can do a lot of good; it has lately been doing a lot of bad. If we cannot arrest the bad within, we must do what we can to deal with it without. That is our duty to America. Live with it!

William Flax

[Diddle E. Squat]

Blah, blah, blah, self-righteous blah.

You and others can make all kind of idealistic pronouncements about how 'pure' you are, and how the rest of us are heathens or socialist sellouts, but it all comes down to the basic facts of politics: It is about coalitions and compromise. The winners never get everything they want, and you can't get power to implement your goals without winning.

Voting for Bush is hardly selling out, but costing him the election will almost certainly freeze the social conservatives out of power for at least a generation, and thus kill any chance of achieving our most important goals.