Now they come with praise. NRO Editor Kathryn Jean Lopez praises Fred Thompson and his failed candidacy for President, and offers a somewhat remorseful eulogy. She harkens to a self-summation of Thompson’s view of Government, offered to caucus-goers in Iowa:

Whoever winds up the Republican nominee for president this year, he’d be doing his country a service if he read Fred’s pre-caucus message to Iowa voters that Thompson posted on his website. In it he listed “the fundamental, conservative principles that have unified us for over two centuries.”

-First, the role of the federal government is limited to the powers given to it in the Constitution
-Second, a dollar belongs in the pocket of the person who earns it, unless the government has a compelling reason why it can use it better
-Third, we don't spend money we don't have, or borrow money that our children and grandchildren will have to pay back
-And the best way to avoid war is to be stronger than our enemies. But if we’re caught in a fight, we need to win it because not doing so makes us much more likely to be attacked in the future
-Also the federal judiciary is supposed to decide cases, not set social policy — and bad social policy at that
-And the bigger the government gets, the less competent it is to run our lives.

Too bad NRO couldn’t buy into Thompson as a candidate to support when they threw their support to Mitt Romney.

Now I read NRO’s justifications for their choice of Romney, and there are certainly aspects of Romney and other contenders (absent Paul and Huckabee) that warrant consideration. But read that list above, and tell me that any of the other candidates even come close to those values. By turning away from those who try to remind us what America can best be about, we ensure that our Government will be anything, but.