Andrew Sullivan believes that he is one of the very few principled conservatives around. Don’t think he’s all that much more principled than the next guy? Just ask him. He also says that he deserves credit for having not only criticized Bush for departing from (Sullivan’s version of) conservatism, but also endorsed his opponent in the last election “when criticizing the president might have actually made a difference.” Plenty of conservatives criticized Bush in that year and other years. Sullivan’s standard, expressed in the past, is that such criticism does not count if the critics thought he deserved support over Kerry. But if you take this line of thought seriously, you’re left with the proposition that if you are disappointed with Bush because he failed to appoint someone like Michael McConnell or Michael Luttig, you should have voted for Kerry. And that makes no sense at all.