But I cannot understand or forgive efforts to construe such a vote as a principled decision.

Mr. Cohen added: "It took politics out of it and showed this was a principled decision.

"These deputies took a principled decision when they voted with us against the opposition bill," Mr. Nunez said.

"They were willing to stand up for unpopular causes for what they viewed as principled decisions," he said.

These were principled decisions, which I accepted and even admired, despite my very different view of the merits and promise of the legislation.

As if I'd put on this uniform for a joke, or out of despair or confusion-anything but a reasoned and principled decision.

It was instead a principled decision to avoid injustice and to preserve the integrity of the judicial process.

But might not he have made a principled decision to stick to the high road and to resist efforts to drag his campaign into the mud?

Perhaps we should be impressed by the highly principled decision one of the young men made about the apartment the two shared: "Mick was working but I wasn't.

He's entirely capable of deciding that a "strong and principled" decision to abandon Greece is required for domestic reasons.