"Maybe you need to check out Robert's post on McCain, and on character and integrity being an issue in selecting a candidate."

Nah, sorry. I don't really care too much about character. I am selecting someone to be an effective administrator/Executive. Character matters, but more so does consistency, fairness and most of all: a command of the relevant issues that will make or break the organization that he/she will administer.

For me, its about as important for a politician to be a good moral upstanding person as it is for athletes. IE- completely pointless. If you look to sports for moral leaders and ethical heroes, you are only slightly more crazy than if you are looking at politicians for those qualities.

Really, all I care about in that department is a demonstrated adherence to the law and a recognition that the constitution is 'the order of battle'. Aside from that, I don't care if they lie in confession and keep a BDSM dungeon in the whitehouse basement- as long as its strictly consensual and used during off hours only.

Now, if I was hiring a baby sitter? Sure. But I'll be damned sure my kids never think of a politician as a nexus of moral fortitude.

Beyond that, you're not having a conversation with Robert, you are having one with me. I don't follow threads here on the HZ much, so Robert must really be laying into you with the willow switch if you are carrying your arguments with him everywhere you go.

"I like Thompson's positions on a number of issues more than the other Republicans. He gets a lot of grief from some circles, even on the Republican side, for not looking like he would be willing to run over a kindergarten class in a Humvee to get to the White House. Oddly, I consider that a plus."

Again- I seriously doubt you have listened to many interviews. The man is a frikin' moron who hasn't a clue. His handlers and advisers can write position statements all day long, but that won't give you any insight into what he knows/thinks/believes. But- you have been explaining away the babbling idiocy that drips out of Bush every time he opens his yap for 7 years, I guess you are immune to idiocy as long as its dressed in the right ideology.

Yeti