The American Spectator

Reader Mail

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A year ago I was telling friends that Rudy Giuliani had no chance in winning the Republican nomination for all the reasons Ms. Fabrizio lists. Today, this pro-life, Second Amendment Republican is considering supporting him. I admit his main competition is the main reason for this support. John McCain can only be trusted to betray his principles for glowing accolades from the media. Mitt Romney has a history of flip flopping gay rights and abortion.

While Rudy has views that I strongly disagree with, his consistency of sticking to these views is a plus when he promises to appoint originalist justices to the Supreme Court. The last six Republican presidents have failed on this measure (Harriet Miers disqualifies G.W. Bush.) Law enforcement and anti-terrorism seem to be two of his main goals. The judiciary he needs to support these goals will not come from the "constitution is a living document" supporters where the pro-choice crowd lives but from the originalist camp. Second Amendment issues are the new third rail, Democrats are nowhere to be seen regarding guns anymore and Giuliani appears too shrewd a politician to make this mistake.

p>Regarding who would sign any anti-abortion bills, there will be no anti-abortion bills unless the Republicans return to the majority in Congress. The only Republican presidential candidate who has potential coattails is Giuliani. To take Ms. Fabrizio's argument about Giuliani's compartmentalization of his religious anti-abortion stance to his public political pro-choice stance to the extreme would lead me to believe Mitt Romney should be in favor of a prohibition against alcohol and coffee! Normally I would sit out a vote between a suspected RINO (because he cuts taxes and supports the death penalty, I don't think Rudy qualifies) and a Democrat, but this particular election is too important. br> -- Donald Parnell br> London, United Kingdom /p>

If R. Emmett Tyrrell did a first class job a few days ago articulating the pragmatic reasons for being encouraged by a Rudy Giuliani presidential candidacy, Lisa Fabrizio does an equally first class job articulating the risks of supporting that same candidate whom many conservatives, including myself, have problems of conscience with.

In particular, Fabrizio's recounting of Giuliani's "position" on abortion, i.e., "I oppose it...I don't like it...I hate it...I think abortion is something that, as a personal matter, I would advise somebody against...However, I believe in a woman's right to choose", recalls the warning playwright Robert Bolt had Sir Thomas More articulate in A Man For All Seasons, "I believe, when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties...they lead their country by a short route to chaos."

p>Can a man whose conscience tells him that he must protect the most innocent and most defenseless disregard those warnings but still avoid leading his country by a short route to chaos? There is a sense of desperation for conservatives, guilty as I, to disregard such a likelihood. br> -- Frank Natoli br> Newton, New Jersey /p>

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Taxes, John McCain, Religion, Catholicism, Abortion, Global Warming, Constitution, Law, Supreme Court, Founding Fathers, NATO, Immigration