Let's see. You're the conservative magazine that holds itself up as the authority on movement orthodoxy.

Do you endorse the pro-choice but pro-World War IV Giuliani?

Or the heroic author of the disastrous immigration compromise, McCain?

I think that Fred Thompson would have been the obvious, logical choice if his campaign weren't a flop. Sure he chased skirts in D.C. for years - but he has a credibly conservative legislative record.

But instead they chose the man Larison calls "the dancing fraud", Romney. The same guy who was to the left of most Red-State Democrats, but has flipped and flopped entirely over to the right. I actually don't mind the flip-flopping, it has almost all been in a direction I approve.

Among my small circle, we are now wondering: perhaps Romney is the best viable choice. Not for any of the reasons National Review cites, but for his obvious cravenness. After years of suffering under Bush's politics-of-conviction, I begin to warm to a guy who seems like he would never allow his approval ratings to go into the  20s in order to maintain the delusion that American military power can transform the Middle East into Middlebury, Conneticut. I know that a lot of people are looking to Obama or Huckabee for a politician they can believe in. I'd rather have a guy who has no core whatsoever, whose every belief is negotiable. The last thing we need in this country is steadfast leadership from a member of our political class.