Is Squirrel-Hair powerful enough to corrupt certain righties?

Leon Wolf has a piece worth your pondering at Red State today, entitled "Who in the Conservative Movement Has Trump Successfully Bought?"

He starts out by correcting the record on the matter of Iowa evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats and the six-figure sum paid for Squirrel-Hair to speak at an event. (S-H did the extorting.)

Wolf then begins wondering about some recent curious developments, such as S-H endorsements from Phyllis Schlafly and Jerry Falwell, Jr.

In the comment thread under the piece, one commenter merely says, "*cough* Breitbart *cough*".

I do believe there are some who just plain drank the Kool-Aid. Laura Ingraham, for instance, has over the past year or so - since before S-H announced - spoken considerably more about populism than about conservatism.

But what is up with the litany of FNC personalities I quoted the other day? Why the overt shilling? (In the case of Pirro, it seems there may be some substantiation for Wolf's speculation:

Before I go on, since the Judge didn’t mention it allow me to point out her financial ties to Trump. New York Magazine once described her ex-husband Al Pirro as “Westchester’s most influential real-estate lawyer, a man Donald Trump keeps on retainer”

Variety said, in 2007 “Sir Pirro, a wily and wildly successful real estate attorney, has a somewhat checkered past that has played itself out quite publicly in the New York media. Indeed he has long standing professional relationships with such high profile individuals as The Donald (Trump),”

In other words, before her divorce Mr. Trump was an important part of Judge Pirro’s household income. And when she ran for New York State Attorney General, Donald Trump donated $20,000 to her campaign. 

 And she has in fact characterized S-H as a personal friend on her show.)

But this business about S-H abruptly bowing out of tomorrow night's debate, and saying he'll only deal with Murdoch and not Ailes, is there a palpable leverage involved? Can S-H play hell with Megyn Kelly's career? He doesn't seem fazed by the response - that he had to anticipate, from principled conservatives - that he's acting like a big baby and like he can't deal with a petite, vivacious former-attorney television personality.

And what's with Rush Limbaugh's excruciatingly abstract dance of late, this whole business about how "this thing is so big and unprecedented, all I can do - all anybody can do - is try to objectively analyze it"? Today, he spent a half-hour setting up today's abstract canvas by talking about how hard it is for him to discuss it at all, given that he is friends or at least acquaintances with most of the players - Kelly, Ailes, Squirrel-Hair, Cruz, etc.

For crying out loud, he's in the opining business. In 28 years, he has never hesitated to draw distinctions of the "this-is-good-this-is-bad / this-is-silly-this-is-substantive / this-is-tyrannical-this-is-freedom-enhancing" variety. Why the waffling now?

All this substantiates the assertion that National Review showed great courage with its latest issue, as has Red State, Power Line, Dana Loesch, Caroline Glick, and others who forthrightly declare that S-H is utterly unsuited to be president.

Maybe there is one positive lesson for us in all this: fealty to principles is always advisable if you really want to sleep well at night.