We gave Rudy Giuliani some love this morning, so to make us truly “fair and balanced” we need to give him some hell tonight.

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, caught our eye a few weeks back when he said that Giuliani had “divorce on steroids.”  Now Land is back at it saying that he would counsel evangelicals to sit out a Giuliani – Clinton battle.

Land beat up Giuliani pretty hard saying:

 ”How can we believe him? He promised … two wives that he would love, honor and cherish and be faithful only unto her until ‘death us do part.’ And twice he lied to his wife—twice. He broke his marital vows. That gets to the basic issue of trust, the basic issue of character. As Harry Truman once argued, he said, ‘I would never knowingly hire a man to work for me who cheated on his wife.’ When he was asked why, he said, ‘Well, if he’ll lie to his wife, he’ll lie to me. If he’ll break his oath of marriage he’ll break his oath of office.’ It’s pretty hard to argue with President Truman’s logic.”

And:

“The lesser of two evils argument has its limits, and this is beyond those limits…. It would violate my principles, it would violate my convictions, and I would be a hypocrite for having said that character was a key issue with Bill Clinton, and then turn around and make it less of an issue when it’s a candidate that I like better than I like Bill Clinton. I couldn’t compromise my principles to that extent to do so.”

On McCain, Land said:

“John McCain has acknowledged that he was unfaithful and it was a major cause of the breakup of his first marriag. He’s expressed regret for that. He said it has grieved him deeply. He has been in a second marriage now for more than 20 years, and by all outward appearances it’s a strong and committed marriage. There’s never been a whiff of scandal about John McCain as a senator. That’s very different than being in a third marriage, as Rudi Giuliani is, and publicly humiliating your wife…. I find most evangelicals, while they’re not affirming of a divorce and a second marriage, see a huge difference between the number two and the number three.”

On Romney, Land said:

“I don’t think it’s necessary that [a candidate] be a born-again Christian. I think it is more important, in terms of their performance of their office, that they be operating out of a Judeo-Christian worldview. So, I would vote for a Jew who agreed with my Judeo-Christian worldview when it came to issues of abortion and marriage over a self-professed born-again Christian like Jimmy Carter.”

On Gingrich’s recent announcement of an extramarital affair, Land said:

“I listened to that program, and I didn’t hear the word repentance…You and I would express special significance to that term. I am delighted that he has acknowledged this, that he has acknowledged his misbehavior, that he is sorry for it, that he would certainly counsel his children and his grandchildren not to follow his behavior. … But it is still a fact that Newt Gingrich was unfaithful to his first wife, he was unfaithful to his second wife.”

Check out the rest of the article here.