Mitt Romney does the honorable thing in the name of party unity and the good of the country.

One of the bitterest feuds of the 2008 presidential race ended Thursday when Mitt Romney threw his support — and vowed to try to throw his delegates — behind his former archrival for the Republican nomination, Senator John McCain of Arizona.

The formal backing of Mr. Romney was the latest coup, though an expected one, for Mr. McCain as he seeks to unite a fractured Republican Party behind his candidacy. And while the fate of Mr. Romney’s delegates will be determined by rules that vary from state to state, his request that they vote for Mr. McCain at the convention is expected to push Mr. McCain closer to the 1,191 delegates he needs to clinch the nomination.

“I am honored today to give my full support to Senator McCain’s candidacy for the presidency of the United States,” Mr. Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, said at a hastily arranged news conference with Mr. McCain in Boston. “I am officially endorsing his candidacy. And today I am asking my delegates to vote for Senator McCain at the convention.”

Mr. Romney decided to make the endorsement on Thursday morning during a meeting with his advisers. Mr. McCain, who was already on a New England swing through Rhode Island and Vermont, quickly added a stop in Boston to collect it.

These two went against each other tooth and nail. John McCain won. Mitt Romney recognized -- quite appropriately -- that there is more that unites us with McCain and his supporters then divides us from them, and that the best way to advance our goals is to work with McCain to reach a conservative result. It isn't an abrogation of principle -- it is an accommodation with reality.

Do I minimize my differences with John McCain? No, I don't -- and I stand by every criticism of him that I have offered during th course of the campaign for the GOP nomination this year. That said, I know he is a lot better than either of the options that the Democrats will offer the American people, and so I choose the good of America over ideological purity.

More At Michelle Malkin, including some deluded sounding Huckabee comments.