Giuliani 2008: The best is the enemy of the good.

It’s becoming more clear that McCain intends to run in 2008. I was talking to The Man of the House after reading the Captain’s post on this topic, and we found that we can, in fact, bring ourselves to vote for Giuliani in spite of the fact that we disagree vehemently with most of his social issue positions.

ISSUE	MCCAIN	GIULIANI	WINNER
Pro Life	No partial birth, no public financing, overturn Roe v. Wade but keep incest and rape exceptions, abortion okay if raped, no test for rape, fetal tissue research okay, embryonic stem cell research okay.	"nuanced:" Pro-choice including partial birth abortions.	McCain
Money	Porkbusters likes him enough to let him post. Overall pretty good, fiscally.	Nothing to add to this: "Fiscal responsibility turned $2B deficit into $2B surplus."	Tie
Civil Rights	Free speech killer via McCain-Feingold. Allow, but not mandate prayer in schools. No flag burning. No gay marriage. 1st amendment doesn’t shield "hate groups."	Limited information to draw from, but "Free speech for private expression, not publicly-funded art. (Oct 1999)"	Guiliani
Crime	Pro death penalty, stricter sentences	Cut crime in NY in half, seems to take a common sense approach.	Tie
Schools	Vouchers, charter schools	Privatize, vouchers, charter schools.	Tie

The thing is, where McCain is bad (free speech, immigration) he’s VERY bad. And Guiliani is at minimum, no worse. McCain comes across as dishonest. Guiliani might be every bit the weasel that McCain is, but that’s not proved - yet. At this point, it comes down to trust. I see McCain taking any position he needs to take in order to claw his way to the Oval Office. And I see Guiliani handing back a check for $10 million dollars because he knows that the Saudis are not, in fact, “our good friends” no matter how many times President Bush calls them that. Can you picture Guiliani strolling through the garden hand in hand with someone who implicitly endorses terror? Me either. But I can see McCain doing it. McCain may seem, on the surface, like the better choice, but where the rubber meets the road, he’s not as strong, and not as trustworthy, as Guiliani. I don’t want a “maverick” in office - where “maverick” really translates to “Republican whose name Democrats can speak without spitting afterwards.” I want a maverick who says, “You’re not welcome here,” to Arafat when he wanted to visit New York. I don’t want a people-pleaser, and I especially don’t want anyone who pleases Democrats because they are even less serious about national security than the Republicans. I don’t want someone who thinks that fighting terrorism is a form of law enforcement. I agree with the Anchoress when she says, “Difficult times demand of us difficult choices.”

If someone better than Rudy Giuliani comes along, I’ll be open to looking at him or her, but right now, I don’t see it. Right now the entire world under siege and that siege must urgently be put down. If we are not safe, all the rest of our concerns will never be addressed, because we’ll be too busy fighting for our lives (and frankly, for our faith, because once the “convert or die” Islamofascists have managed to level a few cities and terrify too many Americans into acquiescence, their next step will be to put us under the burka, or under the sword.) In which case, actually, Nate and the rest of you who are “shocked, shocked” by my support of Giuliani won’t have to worry about “abortion and gay marriage” because our Islamofascist overlords will take care of those issue for us. If your daughter procures an abortion, she’ll be buried to her waist in sand, and then stoned to death. If your son is gay? Well…he’ll be hung by the neck, or decapitated, quickly enough.

Voltaire said that the best is the enemy of the good. I may not like Giuliani’s positions on some things, but I can’t afford to reject him out of hand because he’s not perfect. After reading (New Yorker) the Anchoress’ take on Giuliani, I conclude that while he may not be the best, he’s pretty darn good.