Here's an ethics tip: if you think of a way to accomplish something by appearing to do the opposite, it's probably unethical.

Of course, the clever people who decided that persuading Republicans to vote for Hillary Clinton in the March 4 Democratic primaries was the perfect way to maximize the likelihood of chaos at the Democratic convention may not care about such niceties of right and wrong. After all, how can it be unethical to cause trouble for Democrats?

Such is the sad state of politics in America. With Barack Obama exciting young voters and building both momentum and his delegate count, Republican dreams of the Clintons unleashing a scorched earth campaign for the nomination that would split the party asunder rested on Senator Clinton prevailing in the must-win Ohio and Texas primaries. So the right wing radio prophets, from Rush Limbaugh all the way down the evolutionary scale to Mark Levin, began urging their listeners to go to the polls, declare themselves Democrats, and vote for Hillary, who, you may recall, they detest. All day long, giggling conservatives who had dutifully followed the dictates of their airwaves gurus called in to the programs talking about how they "felt dirty" after voting for the reviled Hillary, or how they felt pangs of nausea when they had to tell poll workers that they were---gack---Democrats, in order to vote for her.

Well, Hillary did pull off big wins in Ohio and Texas. Nobody knows if the conservative reverse-voting plot had any impact, but the morning after certainly included a lot of gleeful crowing from the Loquacious Right. But their trick was grossly unethical, unfair and (are you ready, Rush?) profoundly un-American.

Simply put, what they did was to attempt to sabotage the Democratic primaries and nominating system by creating a result based not on voter preference, which is what elections are supposed to measure, but on a desire to make the system break down. That is wrong, dirty pool, malicious, and cheating. A political party has the right to hold an orderly national nominating process for its presidential candidate without having to endure efforts by people not in the party to cause it to malfunction. The votes for Hillary Clinton being solicited by the Right were not intended to express a preference for her candidacy over that of Senator Obama, or a desire to see her elected president. They were a tactical device to try to prevent the Democrats from arriving at a consensus for as long as possible, and to increase the chances of a divisive Democratic Convention. That's not democracy, and that's not politics. That is mischief-making. Voting in American elections is a constructive act, a right that Americans have fought and died to protect. This trick transformed the cherished act of voting into something dishonest, disrespectful, cynical, perverse, and destructive.

It was, in fact, a close cousin of the juvenile shenanigans of "Votefortheworst," the website that annually tries to ruin American Idol's search for the next pop star by urging voters to vote for the least talented aspiring singer rather than the best. Like the fraudulent primary voters chortling with Laura Ingraham, the "Votefortheworst" gang thinks that perverting the intent of people who care about a competition and hurting the chances of the deserving singers is funny.

I'll concede this: it is funnier than using the most cherished right of a democracy to pervert the democratic process.