If conservatives had elected "moderate" Gerald Ford in 1976, the fiasco known as the Carter Years (one term that seemed much longer) would not have happened and the Republican Party would have moved leftward and nominated Ford or Bob Dole instead of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Edward Whelan, principled President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, staunch supporter of constitutional fidelity and ardent advocate against judicial activism:

"With Mitt Romney’s gracious withdrawal from the race for the Republican nomination, it now seems clear that John McCain will be the Republican candidate for president. Whatever McCain’s real or alleged defects (and I have no interest at this point in debating them), there is a stark difference between him, on the one hand, and Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, on the other, on a range of major issues, including the sort of justices they could be expected to appoint to the Supreme Court.

"I don’t mean to suggest that we’re guaranteed to get outstanding Supreme Court nominations from a President McCain. That would be setting the bar rather high, as no president in my lifetime has made only outstanding Supreme Court nominations. But I do mean that we’d have a fighting chance at outstanding nominees. By contrast, it is a virtual certainty that a President Clinton or President Obama would make terrible nominations.

"Bottom line: Those who care about continuing to work to restore the Supreme Court to its proper role in our constitutional system will have a clear choice in November."

I understand that kind of thinking and might concur in time, but that will depend upon (1) Senator McCain's running mate, (2) whether, despite his lies in the pursuit of the presidency, I think Senator McCain can be trusted to nominate persons like Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Alito and (3) whether I think the United States, the Republican Party and the Conservative Movement will be badly damaged by a McCain presidency (for example, by the adoption of McCain-Kennedy type immigration "reform" that rewards illegal immigration instead of legal immigration and the type of political deals that Senator McCain is used to making with liberal Senators like Ted Kennedy and Russ Feingold).

To be sure, Mr. Whelan is right that "terrible" nominations should be expected from Hillary or Barack. But, the four great current Justices--Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito should not need to be replaced during the next presidential term and after a few years of either Hillary or Barack, the United States should be looking to elect another conservative who would be expected to make good nominations. Yes, a President McCain might have the opportunity to nominate successors for Justices Stevens, Ginsburg, Kennedy, Souter or Breyer, but if he nominates the kind of person who thinks the entire McCain-Feingold law really was constitutional, or should be treated as constitutional under the judicial doctrine known as stare decisis, they are unlikely to overrule Roe v. Wade to respect the states' constitutional right to regulate abortion or Everson v. Board of Education to acknowledge government's right to acknowledge God and support religion generally.

Mr. Whelan's calculation might be right in the short-term, but not the long-term.

Ann Coulter was a Goldwater girl. A very young one.

So was Hillary Clinton, then Hillary Rodham, albeit not that young.

Still, who would have expected Ann to support Hillary for President in 2008?

It may well happen.

If the aged maverick liar John McCain is nominated by the Republican Party, Ann would rather have Hillary win.

Ann, "FROM GOLDWATER GIRL TO HILLARY GIRL," February 6, 2008":

"Nominating McCain is the gesture of a desperate party.

"Republicans...think they can fool the voters by nominating an open-borders, anti-tax cut, anti-free speech, global-warming hysteric, pro-human experimentation "Republican.' Which is to say, a Democrat.

"As the expression goes, given a choice between a Democrat and a Democrat, voters will always choose the Democrat. The only question remaining is: Hillary or Obama?"

McCain is much too liberal for Ann:

"On the litmus test issues of our time, only partially excluding Iraq, McCain is a liberal.

-- He excoriated Samuel Alito as too 'conservative.'

-- He promoted amnesty for 20 million illegal immigrants.

-- He abridged citizens' free speech (in favor of the media) with McCain-Feingold.

-- He hysterically opposes waterboarding terrorists and wants to shut down Guantanamo.

Can I take a breath now?

-- He denounced the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

-- He opposes ANWR and supports the global warming cult, even posturing with fellow mountebank Arnold Schwarzenegger in front of solar panels."

McCain is not nearly pro-life enough for Ann:

"Although McCain has the minimum pro-life record demanded by the voters of Arizona, in 2006, McCain voted in favor of using taxpayer funds to harvest stem cells from human embryos. He opposes a constitutional amendment to protect human life. And he frets that if Roe v. Wade were overruled, women's lives would be 'endangered.' This is the same John McCain who chides Mitt Romney today for 'flip-flopping' on abortion. At least Romney flips and stays there."

Ann emphasized that McCain can't be trusted on judges:

"Of course the most important issue for pro-lifers is the Supreme Court. As long as Roe v. Wade is the law of the land, it doesn't matter how many hearts and minds we've changed. So it's not insignificant that McCain has called Justice Samuel Alito too conservative.

"We ended up with David Hackett Souter when a Republican president was actually looking for an Alito. Imagine how bad it will be when the 'Republican' president isn't even trying.

"McCain uses the boilerplate language of all Republicans in saying he will appoint 'strict constructionists.' This is supposed to end all discussion of the courts. But if he's picking strict constructionists, he will have to appoint judges who will commit to overturning McCain-Feingold.

"That could be our litmus test: Will you hold President McCain's signature legislation restricting speech unconstitutional?"

Then there's marriage. Ann is single, but she wants traditional marriage to be constitutionally protected, so she comically and contemptuously (and correctly) mocked McCain's opposition to that:

"In 2004, McCain criticized the federal marriage amendment, saying, it was 'antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans.' Really? Preventing the redefinition of a 10,000-year-old institution -- marriage, that is, not John McCain -- is part of the core philosophy of being a Republican? I had no idea.

"I'm not a lawyer -- oh wait, yes, I am -- but Republicans were proposing to amend the Constitution, a process the Constitution specifically describes.

"It's like saying it's antithetical to the core philosophy of Republicans to require presidents to be at least 35 years old. It's in the Constitution! And Republicans -- other than the ones who voted for McCain-Feingold -- support the Constitution. You might say it's part of our core philosophy."

Unlike many others, Ann did not shrink from raising the age, overweening personal ambition and anti-Bush animus issues against McCain:

"Of course, back in 2004, McCain was considering running on a presidential ticket with John Kerry. Realizing that this would not help his chances to run as a Republican in 2008, when he would be a mere 120 years old, McCain quickly withdrew his interest in being on Kerry's ticket.

"But he defended Kerry from the Bush campaign's suggestion that Kerry was not tip-top on national security, saying on the 'Today' show: 'No, I do not believe that he is, quote, weak on defense.' So that was helpful

"McCain also explained to an admiring press corps why he wouldn't want to be anyone's vice president, not even a national defense champion like Kerry, citing the meager constitutional duties of the vice president as: (1) to assume the presidency if the president is incapacitated and (2) 'to break a tie vote in the Senate.' (At which point several members of the fawning horde were heard to remark, 'What is this 'Constitution' you speak of, Senator?')

"But McCain conveniently forgot the second of these constitutional duties just a year later when Vice President Cheney was required 'to break a tie vote in the Senate' on a matter of utmost importance to liberals: federal judges.

"Just one year after McCain had correctly identified one of two jobs of the vice president, he was indignant that a Republican vice president might actually exercise one of them. Better to let a gaggle of 14 Senate malcontents pick the president's judges for him.

"As part of the 'Gang of 14,' McCain hysterically opposed allowing the vice president to break a tie on judicial nominations. Following the Constitution with regard to the role of the vice president, McCain said, 'would be a terrible precedent.' Yes, if members of Congress actually read the Constitution, they might realize McCain-Feingold is unconstitutional."

Ann's bottom line:

"If Hillary is elected president, we'll have a four-year disaster, with Republicans ferociously opposing her, followed by Republicans zooming back into power, as we did in 1980 and 1994, and 2000. (I also predict more Oval Office incidents with female interns.)

"If McCain is elected president, we'll have a four-year disaster, with the Republicans in Congress co-opted by "our" president, followed by 30 years of Democratic rule.

"There's your choice, America."

Ann's support of Hillary is a calculated choosing-the-lesser-evil thing.

There is powerful historical precedent for Ann's approach...the Reagan Revolution.

If conservatives had elected "moderate" Gerald Ford in 1976, the fiasco known as the Carter Years (one term that seemed much longer) would not have happened and the Republican Party would have moved leftward and nominated Ford or Bob Dole instead of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Ann is taking a long-term view and it may well be the best thing to do.

Michael J. Gaynor

Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.