Anyone surprised by Pat Robertson’s endorsement of Rudy Giuliani hasn’t been paying attention.

That said, this really is a big one — and it ends the debate over whether Giuliani can make himself acceptable to the Christian Right wing of the Republican Party. I’ve been making the case that he can for well over a year now. Paul Weyrich may have endorsed Mitt Romney. And Sam Brownback may have endorsed John McCain. And James Dobson still may be looking for his anybody-but-Rudy candidate. But if Pat Robertson can stomach our drag-wearing, abortion-tolerating, gay-couple-living-with, three-wife-having ex-mayor … a lot of unlikely folks out there in the countryside can do so as well. The polling has been telling us this for months and months, along with on-the-ground reporting from the campaign trail, but now it’s 100% confirmed.

Still, this really is a remarkable political moment. The War on Terror has clearly eclipsed the culture wars as the defining issue in the conservative movement for better or for worse. (Andrew Sullivan seems to think it’s for the worse. I’m undecided on the question, but I’m leaning toward the position that it’s the healthiest turn of events for the party for which one could reasonably hope.)

The question then is whether Giuliani really wants the Robertson endorsement. If Giuliani thought Ron Paul’s theory of 9/11’s root causes was crazy and offensive…

… well, then maybe he’s never heard what Robertson has to say on the matter:

If Giuliani is offended by the idea that we invited 9/11 by attacking Iraq, maybe he should also be offended by the idea that we invited 9/11 by allowing secularism and paganism and abortion in our society.

Of course, the politics of the situation dictate that Giuliani celebrate the Robertson endorsement. And that’s what he’s doing. Publicly rejecting the endorsement or otherwise rebuking Robertson would be political suicide. Still, there’s a huge amount of hypocrisy involved here, and Giuliani deserves to take the hit for it among non-Christian Right voters. He should definitely get a question on this at the next debate — at the very least.