An e-mail:

I understand why many conservatives are deeply suspicious of McCain.
But I wish NRO would ease up on him for the following reasons:
(a) He did play an important role in supporting the surge idea.
The surge turned a probably lost war into a probably won war.
That is huge.
(b) Does anyone really believe that Romney can win in Novenmber?
Even if McCain lost to the Democrats, he could keep the damage
down to non-catastrophic levels.
(c) McCain is very likely to get the nimination. And the relentless
attacks on him from the right may bloody him so much as to cost
us an election that is by no means lost at this point.
Right now, the issue is not whether we have a simon-pure party, but
whether we have any party at all come 2009.
I am a dyed-in-the-wool conservative. I have never voted for a Democrat
or liberal in my life. There is much in McCain’s past behavior I
strongly dislike. But at least he understands that losing wars is BAD.
We dare not lose in Iraq, and we dare not lose to the Dems.
I must admit that I am getting somewhat p**sed off at NRO. If we lose in
November, and some of that is traceable to the agitation of NRO …