Hewitt Blog

A lot of Iowa voters are expected to cast ballots for Tom Tancredo at the Ames straw poll this week. Until recently a vote for Tancredo would have been understood as a vote against indifference to illegal immigration and for the idea of deportation. But the general and instant rejection of the proposed immigration "reform" bill undercut Tancredo's candidacy as all of the leading GOPers came out against the bill and managed to do so without sounding nativist in the least degree. Suddenly you could be for strong borders and coherent regularization without being for Tancredo, and his "protest" candidacy sputtered, and then began to bomb, burdened as well by Tancredo's own debate performances. Ron Paul became the marginal candidate with the biggest band.

Desperate for attention, Tancredo returned to a subject he once dallied with --the wisdom of bombing Mecca and Medina in the aftermath of an attack on the U.S. When Tancredo suggested this destructive approach two years ago, he quickly backtracked and told me and others that he was answering a hypothetical.

The desperation for attention that seems to guide Tancredo drove him back to the fringes of American political life a couple of days ago:

"If it is up to me, we are going to explain that an attack on this homeland of that nature would be followed by an attack on the holy sites in Mecca and Medina," he said in Iowa last week. "Because that's the only thing I can think of that might deter somebody from doing what they otherwise might do."

Tancredo's position is endorsed by no one else on the American political stage and for good reason: We are not at war with Islam. Our enemies want us to be at war with Islam because that is how they see the battle, and they wish us to embrace their disfigured vision of the conflict. They want every Muslim to believe that America is on a crusade to destroy Islam. They want the peoples of Turkey, Pakistan, Jordan and Indonesia as well as of every other Muslin on the globe to believe America hates Islam and is bent on destroying it. Tancredo has given our enemies a huge gift, one that increases the dangers to all of our soldiers, and which insults every Muslim serving in the uniform of the United States, but denouncing him diminishes that propaganda bonanza, and I hope every Republican candidate does so and soon.

A vote for Tancredo --even a straw vote at Ames-- is a vote for religious war and increasing the risks to our troops and the pressures on our allies.

 

Dr. Frank Beckwith is a very well known theologian --the president of the Evangelical Theological Society, in fact-- who recently announced his conversion to Catholicism. (More specifically, Beckwith who was baptised a Catholic and raised a few years in the Church, "returned to full communion" with the Church in April.) His friend and co-author Greg Koukl is a well-known apologist who founded Stand To Reason.

Yesterday Koukl hosted Beckwith in a frank, sometimes sharp discussion of the Protestant/Catholic divide. 

Mark Finkelstein examines the latest from James Carroll. 

The story:

Two men are being held in the Berkeley County Detention Center after police find explosive making devices in their car. The quantity of explosive making materials in that vehicle is unclear. The FBI (website) reports that there is no known link to terrorism. The Berkeley County Sheriff's Office believes that among materials in the car's trunk were a bomb and bomb making materials that include chemicals, fuses, and igniters. The men 21-year-old Yousef Megahed and 24-year-old Ahmed Mohamed were pulled over Saturday evening during a routine traffic stop near Myers Road and Highway 176. Few details about the suspects are known at this time. They are believed to be students at a Florida college. They are of Middle Eastern descent and are not US citizens. Neither man has been charged, but charges are expected Monday. A press conference will be held in Berkeley County on Monday morning.

HT: Andrew McCarthy at The Corner

What, I wonder, qualifies as a "link to terrorism?" 

Didn't watch it. Went to church as I suspect the majority of GOP primary voters did, with the other half on vacation, on the golf course, or just loafing through a Sunday morning.

So I am sorting through the post-debate campaign releases, and the best one-liner and the best spin definitely comes from Team Romney:

The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza: "Former Gov. Mitt Romney is the frontrunner in Iowa and he's at the center of the debate at its start." (Chris Cillizza, "Republican Debate In Iowa Begins," Washington Post's The Fix, http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/ 8/5/07)

Time's Mark Halperin: "I think Governor Romney had the best performance overall. He's been strong in all the debates, comes very well prepared." (ABC WOI-DM's "Vote 2008 Special," 8/5/07)

Time's Mark Halperin: "Mitt Romney gets an A. I couldn't find a lot of things to criticize in his performance. He faced some tough questions, but he did a good job handling it. It's becoming clich to say, but he looks and sounds like a president. For a lot of voters that's important." (ABC WOI-DM's "Vote 2008 Special," 8/5/07)

ABC News Political Director David Chalian: "I think Mitt Romney had a really strong performance. … I think from then on out, he had a very smooth, solid performance, and continues to show why he is leading in these early states." (ABC WOI-DM's "Vote 2008 Special," 8/5/07)

The Politico's Jonathan Martin: "The pre-packaged one-liner of the morning. At least so far. Romney on Obama's desire to meet with enemy leaders and hawkish views on Pakistan: 'He's gone from Jane Fonda to Dr. Strangelove in one week.'" (Jonathan Martin, "The View From Across The Street," The Politico, http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/ 8/5/07)

National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez: "I didn't know where [Romney]'d go from the McCain, Giuliani start there.... hitting Obama 'from Jane Fonda to Dr. Strangelove' was pretty funny, and to point. And a good ending on the military and the surge." (Kathryn Jean Lopez, "The Corner," National Review Blog, http://corner.nationalreview.com\ , 6/5/07)

The Politico's Jonathan Martin "Republican pollster and author Frank Luntz and Fox News have set up a dial group of 29 GOP primary voters from the Des Moines area … Asked who was winning the debate so far, about a dozen said Romney." (Jonathan Martin, "The View From Across The Street," The Politico, http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/ 8/5/07)

The Politico's Jonathan Martin: "One small but influential group of voters -- a bit like Iowa itself, come to think of it -- had Mitt Romney winning at the halfway point." (Jonathan Martin, "The View Across The Street," The Politico, 8/5/07)

National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez: "From the 'normal American' focus group that just dropped by my Corner Debate Watching Headquarters ... 'Romney seems the most pleasant and presidential.' Coming off that YouTube fighting with that radio host, he seems like a guy revving for the fight. (Kathryn Jean Lopez, "The Corner," National Review Blog, http://corner.nationalreview.com\ , 6/5/07)

National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez: "'Moving Islam toward modernity'… Romney's attitude sounds a little like Ronald Reagan's cultural exchanges with the Soviet Union. And it strikes me as a real-world approach taking into consideration the problems we face run deep." (Kathryn Jean Lopez, "The Corner," National Review Blog, http://corner.nationalreview.com/ , 6/5/07)

ABC News Political Radar: "Romney has a pretty effective – if not down-the-line conservative – answer on healthcare: 'We have to have our citizens insured.' And he took a subtle jab at Giuliani's new health care plan, which relies on tax breaks to encourage individuals to obtain health coverage." (ABC News, "Live Blogging From Sunday's Democratic Debate," http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/, 8/5/07)

Team Giuliani sends along this:

Townhall.com’s Matt Lewis: “I've got to declare Rudy Giuliani the winner today.” (Matt Lewis, “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” Townhall.com’s Blog, 8/5/07, Accessed 8/5/07)

• Lewis: “[I]t has now become apparent that Rudy Giuliani is the leader when it comes to ideas. Several times, he has injected a new idea which then, other candidates copied.” (Matt Lewis, “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” Townhall.com’s Blog, 8/5/07, Accessed 8/5/07)

• Lewis: “Rudy has clearly thought-through the questions and answers to a greater degree than the other candidates.” (Matt Lewis, “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” Townhall.com’s Blog, 8/5/07, Accessed 8/5/07)

ABC News’ Rick Klein: “[Giuliani] has some serious support in the hall …” (Rick Klein, “Live Blogging From Sunday’s Democratic Debate,” ABC News’ “Political Radar” Blog, 8/5/07, Accessed 8/5/07)

• Klein: Rudy “got what appeared to be the most applause upon entering the room …” (Rick Klein “Live Blogging From Sunday’s Democratic Debate,” ABC News’ “Political Radar” Blog, http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/, 8/5/07, Accessed 8/5/07)

The American Spectator’s Jennifer Rubin: “Rudy shows most command of detail and is making his case effectively that NYC experience matters.” (Jennifer Rubin, “Debate 5,” The American Spectator’s “AmSpecBlog,” http://www.spectator.org/blogger.asp?BlogID=7507, 8/5/07, Accessed 8/5/07)

• Rubin: “[Giuliani] weaves his command of detail and his NYC experience into answers impressively.” (Jennifer Rubin, “Debate Wrap Up,” The American Spectator’s “AmSpecBlog,” http://www.spectator.org/blogger.asp?BlogID=7510, 8/5/07, Accessed 8/5/07)

The New York Times’ Katharine Q. Seelye: “Giuliani took to the question [on raising taxes] the way King Kong might take the Empire State Building.” (Katharine Q. Seelye, “Sunday Morning Debate Blogging,” The New York Times’ “The Caucus” Blog, http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/, 8/5/07, Accessed 8/5/07)

National Review Online’s Kathryn Jean Lopez: Rudy displayed “the right instincts.” (Kathryn Jean Lopez, “The Right Instincts,” National Review Online’s “The Corner” Blog, http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MWNiMmU5NDZiNmU2ZjU4MGRlNWNkODk3NDIzYzU1MTE, 8/5/07, Accessed 8/5/07)

• Lopez: Rudy’s answer on his mistakes was “realistic and good.” (Kathryn Jean Lopez, “Rudy On Mistakes,” National Review Online’s “The Corner” Blog, http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjFhYjhjNTgwOTAzNzQ1ZGMxOWNlYzRlN2NiOWFlNTA, 8/5/07, Accessed 8/5/07)

Townhall.com’s Matt Lewis: “Rudy is brillaint [sic] at these debates.” (Matt Lewis, “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” Townhall.com’s Blog, www.townhall.com/blog/g/5ad983e3-7d46-421f-93c8-74d5f8e26d2b,, 8/5/07, Accessed 8/5/07)

• Lewis: “[Giuliani] refuses to accept the assumptions of the questioners … Other candidates should learn this lesson.” (Matt Lewis, “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” Townhall.com’s Blog, 8/5/07, Accessed 8/5/07)

• Lewis: “Rudy makes … a very, very good point” on democracy building. (Matt Lewis, “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” Townhall.com’s Blog, http://www.townhall.com/blog/g/5ad983e3-7d46-421f-93c8-74d5f8e26d2b,, 8/5/07, Accessed 8/5/07)

• Lewis: “Rudy scores points by being the first to refer to ‘socialized healthcare.’” (Matt Lewis, “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” Townhall.com’s Blog, 8/5/07, Accessed 8/5/07)

• Lewis: “Giuliani points out that in 4 Democrat debates, the words Islamic extremism were never mentioned. He points out that Iraq is a battle in a larger war.” (Matt Lewis, “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” Townhall.com’s Blog, 8/5/07, Accessed 8/5/07)

The Washington Posts’ Chris Cillizza: “Giuliani is certainly on message.” (Chris Cillizza, “Giuliani Continues To Slam Democrats,” The Washington Posts’ “The Fix” Blog, 8/5/07, Accessed 8/5/07)

• Cillizza: “Giuliani’s strident criticism of Democrats on security and taxes are aimed at showing Republican primary voters that he is plenty conservative to represent them in the general election.” (Chris Cillizza, “Giuliani Continues To Slam Democrats,” The Washington Posts’ “The Fix” Blog, 8/5/07, Accessed 8/5/07)

Senator McCain's ship e-mails:

John McCain "Shines When He Reminds Us Of Stakes In Iraq"

The American Spectator's Jennifer Rubin: "McCain ... Shines When He Reminds Us Of Stakes In Iraq." (Jennifer Rubin, "Debate 5," American Spectator Blog, 8/5/07)

ABC News: "McCain Looks Strong On The War Again." (ABC News, "Live Blogging From Sunday's Democratic Debate," "Political Radar" Blog, 8/5/07)

National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez Cheers McCain Iraq Stance: "You Go, Senator." "John McCain feels my pain. 'We will not set a date for surrender, as the Democrats want us to.' You, go, senator." (Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review's The Corner Blog, 8/5/07)

Red State's California Yankee: "My Favorite Moments ... McCain Remains Firm On The War ..." (California Yankee, "Republicans Debate In Iowa," Red State Blog, 8/5/07)

John McCain "Awesome" When Decrying Pork-Barrel Spending

The New York Sun's Liz Mair: "McCain Is On Pork. Awesome. ... This Is Where I Love McCain." (Liz Mair Blog, www.lizmair.com, 8/5/07)

The American Spectator's Jennifer Rubin: "McCain gives it to Congress for porkbarrel spending rather than infrastructure maintenance ..." (Jennifer Rubin, "Debate 5," American Spectator Blog, 8/5/07)

The Politico's Jonathan Martin: "[McCain] appeared to come to life when he was able to address a favorite topic: pork. Decrying the earmark-heavy highway bill that included the now-famous 'bridge to nowhere,' McCain pointed out that the same legislation included 'not one dime' for 'bridge inspection.'" (Jonathan Martin, "A Good Moment For McCain," The Politico's "Jonathan Martin" Blog, 8/5/07)

McCain Brings Humor To Morning Debate

MSNBC's Domenico Montanaro: "McCain bringing a little humor to it with what the responsibilities of a VP should or would be. He said he's thought a lot about it having been considered for that post several times one of those responsibilities is being aware of the president's health! Ha." (Domenico Montanaro, "And We're Back," MSNBC's First Read Blog, 8/5/07)

Time Magazine's Ana Marie Cox: "[McCain] gets off a great, relaxed line about how the VP has two duties: to cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate and 'inquire daily as to the health of the president.' ... He sums up seriously, saying that he'd give the VP a portfolio, but that he'd make sure 'that everyone understands there's only one president.' Snap." (Ana Marie Cox, "Liveblogging: Girding Loins In Des Moines," Time's "Swampland" Blog, 8/5/07)

Compare these three releases, and you instantly see that Governor Romney is leading with the strongest set of authorities and quotes when it comes to post-debate analysis, but that Mayor Giuliani is not far behind. Senator McCain is quoting Red State's "California Yankee," Ana Marie Cox and Domenico Montanaro. Advantage Romney. I'll play the interesting selections tomorrow, but Senator Strangelove Obama will get the most play across all media, and that's a big plus. The GOP wants a candidate who will take it to Clinton-Obama, and while Rudy has already shown his willingness to do that, Romney caught up with today's telling barb.

Clearly the race has entered a stage where Romney and Giuliani are locked in a tight, compelling contest with Romney holding an advantage in Iowa and New Hamnpshire the he will hope to use to catapult past the mayor in Florida. Senator Thompson's fan dance has gotten old, and I suspect skipping this and future debates sours more than entices the electorate. Unlike the Dems, the GOP's top tier has avoided throwing haymakers at each other, which is a very good thing this far out from the actual votes.

On to Ames, where vote totals at least provide some hard data on which to base the spin.

 

The netroots is reveling in Chicago, and the natural reaction is to ask, “Where’s our YearlyKos?”

It’s a good question, but ultimately a short-sighted one from an historical perspective. Go back and re-read the TNR piece on the netroots from May. Especially this part:

The Democratic leadership and the liberal intelligentsia seemed pathetic and exhausted, wedded to musty ideals of bipartisanship and decorousness. Meanwhile, what the netroots saw in the Republican Party, they largely admired. They saw a genuine mass movement built up over several decades. They saw a powerful message machine. And they saw a political elite bound together with ironclad party discipline.

This, they decided, is what the Democratic Party needed. And, when they saw that the party leadership was incapable of creating it, they decided to do it themselves. “We are at the beginning of a comprehensive reformation of the Democratic Party,” write Moulitsas and Armstrong.

Who is jealous of who here? YearlyKos, and also the Take Back America Conference, were almost certainly borne of the question “Where is our CPAC?” Some of those covering this act as though the idea of a conference with thousands of grassroots activists and Presidential candidates falling all over themselves to speak is totally unheard of on the right. Um, no. The netroots was built on Xeroxing the Goldwater-Reagan Revolution in the Republican Party. Almost always, it was conservatives who were the initial innovators.

When covering the netroots vs. the rightroots, reporters look at things through a particular frame that by definition excludes the vast majority of grassroots activity on the right. For something to be newsworthy in this space, it must be blog-based, it must have emerged in the last five years, and it must be focused on elections over legislative or policy outcomes.

The problem with this angle is that most of the conservative institutions online emerged in the late Clinton Administration or immediately after 9/11. At their peak, they were larger than Daily Kos, and arguably some still are. And they rarely receive any scrutiny because they don’t fit the frame. From a macro movement-building perspective, the left catching us to us is being covered as a need for us to catch up with something the left has invented anew.

And despite how unfair that narrative is, there’s something to it. The conservative analog to YearlyKos is 30 years old. The 800lb. gorillas of the conservative Web initially went online in the 1995-97 timeframe. And many have failed to innovate. They are still Web 1.0, where the Left jumped directly into Web 2.0 in the Bush years. Consider:

• The Drudge Report is probably the most popular political Web site, bar none. Matt Drudge sets the tone of MSM coverage. And yet Drudge has made clear he disdains blogs. The site looks the same as it did in 1997 (can’t argue with success, I suppose). There is no interactivity on Drudge. You go there, read, refresh, and that’s it.
• At its height, Free Republic was the Daily Kos of the right. In fact, I think the stratospheric, un-blog-like traffic numbers of Kos can only be explained by Kos finally filling the Free Republic void on the Left. Who could forget shenanigans like sabotaging Gore campaign conference calls with toilets flushing in the background, or the cries of “Get out of Cheney’s house!” Freepers were able to move action virtually anywhere in America. If Daily Kos is the angry left, Free Republic was the angry right — and we were hooked.

  But Free Republic simply could not succeed in the world of the blogosphere, social media, and Web 2.0. The founders made the decision that they were going to hoard as much traffic on their servers as possible, by posting full-text articles (that eventually got them slapped with high-profile lawsuits from WaPo and the LAT). Early on, links to blogs were verboten. If you expressed your own opinion when starting a thread, that was a “vanity” and it was frowned upon. And fundraising for candidates was strictly forbidden, except for those pet causes approved by Jim Robinson. Their culture was very anti-blog and anti-original content.

  Today, Free Republic increasingly finds itself marginalized. If you support Rudy Giuliani, who still has a decent shot at being our nominee, you’ve probably been purged. Free Republic’s walled garden approach worked in the days before blogs and broadband, but they actively resisted changing with the times. What we now have is a resource with more unique eyeballs than Kos but one that won’t work with others or push the envelope technologically. What a waste. Imagine how the history of the rightroots could have been different if Free Republic wasn’t still stuck in 1996?

  What lessons did our activists learn from this? Freepers, who were our best online activists, never learned how to swarm to other sites, to take different kinds of actions, and to raise money for conservative candidates.

• Finally, let’s look at the center-right blogosphere. Its watershed moments were 9/11 and CBS memogate. That’s reflected in our strongest core competencies — warblogging and acting as media watchdogs.

  Unfortunately, that poses structural challenges that has starved the center-right of tech-savvy volunteers. Of all the issues to choose to make an impact on, the $400 billion-a-year defense apparatus is probably the most impenetrable. (Personally, I would hope that the Pentagon is not reading the blogs to decide their battleplan.) So on the war, we are pretty much limited to punditry, with the obvious exceptions of the milbloggers in the field.

  And the media focus also fits the frame of conservative bloggers as pundits rather than activists. If we act as pseudo-journalists and commentators, it stands to reason that we’d think actually getting involved on a campaign is dirty business.

My co-blogger Hugh Hewitt refers to the “lead pipes” of the left-wing blogosphere that are slowly but surely contaminating the groundwater in the Democratic Party. But if their pipes are dirty, ours are leaky and badly in need of an overhaul. (At least if one wants to do more than just pass along positive information about the war.)

It would be one thing if we didn’t have any of these institutions, and could start from scratch just as the netroots did. My fear is that we have a bunch of institutions that still function somewhat well, but are long past their prime. With that, there is the danger we will slowly die without knowing it, as our techniques gradually lose effectiveness year after year. Just like newspaper circulation numbers. And there are a number of people on the right who are still complacent about this.

It seems to me that the numbers are there to do something great around the 2008 elections, and that all we need to do is effectively tap into the conservative blogosphere. I looked at N.Z. Bear’s traffic stats for political blogs with over 20,000 visits a day. And the visitor gap between left and right was lower than I could remember in some time: 1.2 million to 870,000 for the left (half of the left’s total was Kos).

Looking beyond the blogosphere, a place the MSM isn’t as familiar with, and you’ll see that the conservative Web is larger than the liberal Web. Sites like Townhall, WorldNetDaily, and Free Republic have monthly audiences that regularly beat Daily Kos and the Huffington Post, to say nothing of Drudge, which still reigns supreme.

So the people are there, just as they’ve always been. My concern with some of the sites I discussed above is that for ten long years, they haven’t been giving our people Web experiences that teach them how to be more than simple readers.

 

The McConnell-Bond bill that revises and updates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act passed the Senate with strong bipartisan support of 17 Democratic senators. It is a crucially necessary bit of legislation given that FISA is not only 30 years old, it has also been crippled by the "secret ruling by a FISA judge earlier this year that declared surveillance of purely foreign communications that pass through a U.S. communications node illegal without a court-approved warrant -- a requirement that intelligence officials have described as unacceptably burdensome." (Details here.)

More from the Washington Post: "Every day we don't have [this wiretap authority], we don't know what's going on outside the country," a senior White House official said. "All you need is one communication from, say, Pakistan to Afghanistan that's routed through Seattle that tells you 'I'm about to do a truck bomb in New York City' or 'about to do a truck bomb in Iraq,' and it's too late."

The House could quickly take up what is obviously an urgently needed and broadly backed bill and thus help secure the country against terrorist attack, or the Pelosi Democrats could continue to play politics with the nation's defenses. None of the Democratic candidates for president have called on their party to move decisively to fix this gap in the law, and the irresponsible lassitude by the Speaker and her extreme colleagues and staff underscore the consequences of turning leadership of the government over to the silly party.

At this moment, as has been the case for many months, terrorists abroad are communicating their plans and we are not intercepting those communications though we have the technical ability to do so because of Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in control of Congress.

17 Senate Democrats understood that this situation cannot continue. Is Nancy Pelosi so blinded by partisan rage that she will leave the nation blinded rather than pass a bill the Administration demands? The House switchboard is 202-225-3121.

Here is the history of the McConnell-Bond bill. Here is the text. I cannot yet find the rollcall vote, but will post it here when I can.

UPDATE:  The bill passed the House.  187 Democrats voted against it. 

Posted by Generalissimo

Much has been said in the mainstream media about how the Bush presidency is essentially over, a lame duck mired in controversy. Thursday, however, George W. Bush demonstrated that when he does wish to use the bully pulpit, especially with powerful allies like Mitch McConnell in the United States Senate, he very much can move legislation through in a very timely fashion.

Throughout this week in both houses of Congress, there has been consideration and negotiation on a piece of legislation submitted by Vice Admiral Mike McConnell, the National Director of Intelligence, who very clearly spelled out in Congressional testimony that there are gaping holes in the FISA laws that prevent our intelligence community from acquiring information that would help them detect and prevent another attack on U.S. soil. Without this legislation, Admiral McConnell forcefully stated in his testimony, our country remains extremely vulnerable, and unnecessarily so, to acts of terror. Naturally, both chambers this week played politics with the issue. But as the week headed quickly towards the August recess, a key sequence of events took place.

On Friday, President Bush, surrounded by his national security team, gave a short speech calling out Congress to stop the bickering, end the stalling, and pass this legislation. After explaining the urgency of fixing the hole in the FISA law, he stated that he was calling on Congress to remain in session and work through their August recess until they get him a bill he could sign. He went on to say that whatever legislation ended up on his desk would have to meet with the approval of the Admiral, or he would veto it. And Friday afternoon, President Bush got some help in the Senate by Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who threatened to keep the Senate from adjourning until they act. And Friday night, act they did.

 Read More...

Yesterday, Mitt Romney went into Iowa radio host Jan Mickelson’s studio for a conversation about politics. At least it should have been about politics. Instead, Mickelson decided he wanted to grill Romney on the Mormon church and Mormon theology. (I also thought Mickelson’s comments on politics, namely that the President should overrule the Supreme Court when in the President’s opinion the Court oversteps its bounds, were a tad on the screwy side as well.)

Mickelson’s station, WHO, had a video recorder on the governor that was recording his off-air comments, something that Romney was unaware of. On the air, Mickelson stated that according to Mormon theology, Romney should have been excommunicated from the Mormon Church because he was once pro-choice. Off the air, Romney tried to gently tell Mickelson that he didn’t know what he was talking about. Although I’ve never heard even a snippet of Mickelson’s show before today, I bet Mickelson holding forth on something he knows nothing about happens on a not infrequent basis. The off air exchange (that once again Romney didn’t know was being taped) was at times heated. WHO today posted the footage on its website.

Dirty pool aside, I don’t think Romney has looked better at any time during the campaign. Firm, decisive, authoritative – that’s the guy I know. While it’s a shame that some members of the media will decide that Romney should have to defend his faith and insist that he campaign for theologist-in-chief as well as commander-in-chief, it was wonderful to see Romney making such a strong case for his candidacy and the proper role of religion in the campaign.

The footage above starts a bit slow, but give it time. I promise you it heats up.

Compliments? Complaints? Contact me at Soxblog@aol.com