Temper tantrum?  How about exercising our rights and duty as engaged citizens of this Republic????  How about that, eh?

This is what the libs said in 1980 when RR got elected and what they said in 1994 when the Republicans "took over" Congress.

I guess when you join the NYT they inject you with lib hormones.

Kristol was backing McCain last time around....none of what he has said has surprised me at all.

Barnes has infuriated me more and more so lately...he always has with his ease on illegal immigration, backing McCain ect.

I watch less and less of Fox anymore....just a few shows at night.

Nobody is going to cram McCain down my throat....least of all the talking heads of any stripe.

    What was the need for Kristol's pre-emptive scolding strike?

  This is an attempt to shift blame for party disunity on the majority of the party because of the imposition of a candidate who doesn't represent the majority of the party.

My opinion of Bill Kristol just went down the drain.  He recently was hired by the New York Times so it looks like he is already doing the bidding of his new employer.

If the GOP choose to run with a sh*t sandwich for a candidate then I for one am not going to have a bite. To hell with compromising on conservative principles.

I can't speak for everyone here, but I would imagine that most of us are Conservative by (intelligent, insightful, and thoughtful) choice and Republican by necessity. We understand that the Republican Party is the only game in town.

What is so galling to us is how the Republican party leadership takes us for granted. I view it as a direct result of the gradual shift in the leadership: those who were Reaganites were replaced with the neo-cons that the Bush faction has put into their place. It began when the House Republicans got screwed for going after Clinton by the RINOs in the Senate. When Mr. Bush came to power, it continued with the so-called scandels that saw Tom DeLay and Trent Lott forced from their leadership positions while Mr. Bush stood quietly by.

The problem with the present leadership and Bush in particular is that they have erased many of the distinctions that made us different from the Democrats and their liberal leadership. Senator McCain has benefitted from that lack. This is the real reason why the MSM wants us the Party to send him to the general election. Once he wins, they will do to him what we were able to do to Senator Kerry.

For the opposite reasoons, this is why they fear Mitt Romney. He is the true threat to their agenda and their hopes. They now that they will not be able to attack him the way they can Senator McCain. They also know that Senator McCain is more likely to self-destruct.

I don't believe that Billy Kristol has been sipping the Kool Aid they have in the water cooler at the NYT, but he is being disingenuous with his finger pointing. If he wants to stump for McCain, then he should be honest enough to say so.

Speaking of temper tantrums, if McCain does not get the nomination, how long do you think he will stay in this tent the circus elephants have erected? Sure, if well constructed, a bigger tent is better but it seems that in their quest to expand at any cost, some of the elephants are pulling out stakes that could cause a major collapse.

The most sustained, organized attempt to intimidate conservatives into supporting John McCain has come from current and former members of the Weekly Standard staff. 

The magazine supported John McCain in the 2000 Republican primary, so it is pretty dishonest for Kristol to argue that he is simply suggesting the most realistic course for conservatives in 2008.  This crew has been trying to move the GOP left for a long time now. 

The most recent examples of Weekly Standard nastiness:

- Fred Barnes, in an article titled "Let's Grow Up, Conservatives" referring to the "talk radio mafia" (Currently up at Weeklystandard.com).

- In a Campaign Standard blog post from today, "Richelieu"(a.k.a. Mike Murphy, senior strategist with the McCain campaign in 2000) writes: "From an election results perspective it appears hanging out with the anti-immigrant Bund seems to be a kiss of death."

Opposition to John McCain has been given a name by the media: "talk radio".  Thuggish support for John McCain deserves a name too: the Weekly Standard. 

If the McCain-Feingold Political Speech Suppression Act restricted the Weekly Standard to spending only a nickle each year to publish (salaries, rent, utilities, printing costs, etc.) the Weekly Standard, would Kristol consider that a restriction on its free speech rights?

I happen to agree with Mr. Kristol.  McCain is too liberal on many issues, but we can't afford to have Hillary or Barrack in the White House.  The most powerful act a President can take is appointing Supreme Court justices.  The next 4-8 years will see between 1 and 4 new justices selected.  How many Ruth Bader Ginsburgs do you want deciding the future of our country?  It's very possible the Republicans will be below filibuster level after November.  I'm a huge fan of Rush, Sean, et al, but they're starting to sound like liberals, in the sense that they'd rather be an OPPOSER than a LEADER.

With the exception of Ann Coulter, I haven't heard any leading conservative voices threaten to do so.

Rush Limbaugh has dropped some really, really strong hints that if McCain is the republican nominee that his vote may be going elsewhere. I can assure you that mine will be.

As for Bill Kristol's comments, we conservatives will have a "temper tantrum" anytime we darn well feel like it. If the republican party continues its perilous slide to the left, many of us are going to refuse to go along. We do not need two blatantly lefty-socialist political parties in this country.

None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free. -J.W. von Goethe

McCain is over 70 years old an he looks like he is pushing 90. I really don't see this guy having the energy to run for re-election. If McCain selects a reasonable running mate (NOT Huckabee), I would essentially be hoping that the VP would be running in 2012.

Let's face it we are stuck with 3 terrible options

__________________Hillary____Obama___McCain
illegal aliens_________bad________bad_____bad
Iraq________________?_________bad_____reasonable
supreme court_______bad________bad_____bad
taxes______________bad________bad_____not as bad

All three of these options make me want to puke. Hillary and Obama get an F- while McCain gets an F+. But Hillary and Obama will likely be there for 8 years if they get their foot in the door, McCain might not be(please, please, please).

If you are going to vote to send a message to the Republican Party, remember, it will also send a message of empowerment to the Democrats. Hillary and Obama will likely look at a wide margin of victory as a sign of approval.

Please Mitt, find a way to pull a miracle.

"an endorsement of communism is an endorsement of slavery"

Bill Kristol is a sissy conservative and spoiled brat commentator.

Every time I see him I always think of his sitting there in front of the TV Camera stating with arrogant certainty that Bill Clinton will be gone within the week, after the Monica Lewinsky affair was headlined.

He and Fred Barnes are Republican Party parrots who expound what they want to be the facts as apposed to what the facts really are.

Temper tantrum, indeed.  Maybe if the MSM and certain politicians hadn’t stepped all over each other to endorse the McCain candidacy before the vast majority of Americans had a chance to cast their primary votes… maybe then I wouldn’t have such a bad taste in my mouth.  Senator Martinez, Governor Crist, Rudy Giuliani, Governor Schwarzenegger and certain MSM pundits turned up the pressure on voters to support the Republican General Election ticket before most of us had the opportunity to cast a primary vote.  Talk Radio is the counter-balance to the lobbying efforts of Bill Kristol and others… but conservative Talk Radio may have come to this game too late.