News of The Question yesterday was dominated by response to the AP's vain attempt at a "gotcha" piece concerning Romney's ancestry.

• As Lowell pointed out yesterday, James Taranto was devastating.
• Even Rush Limbaugh, not much of a religion commentator, got in on the act:

Many of us have been trying to analyze for many years: why this personal hatred of George Bush on the part of entertainers and others when they don't even know him. It's one thing to disagree with somebody's policies and so forth, but the personal hatred is just difficult to understand, unless you understand the root of it.

 

I think I do, and I think it has to do with faith. I think they're scared of Bush. I think so many people who don't believe in God have basically a guilt trip about that — not all, but some do — and whenever they are confronted with someone who doesn't have such doubts but has a firm belief in God, I think they're threatened immediately. If they then think that a person who has a firm belief in God is using any aspect of that faith as part of a foundation for governing, the way a personal life is lived, I think it's threatening. There are probably a lot of other psychological factors rooted in this because it's quite abnormal to personally hate somebody you don't know. Yet there's quite a lot of it on the left, and I think as I've mentioned to you before, global warming is a religion. It's not a scientific movement. It's not a moral movement as Gore wanted to point out.

 

It's a pure religion, and as I think Chesterton said, "If you don't believe in God, you'll believe in anything," and people who do believe in God and people who have no problem publicly proclaiming their faith are a huge, huge threat, both psychologically and emotionally to people who don't share that faith or have any faith at all — other than in inanimate objects like elements of the earth or what have you. I think with Romney, the fact that Mormonism is not understood by people, it's considered to be a cult, a weirdo sect. It's considered, by people who don't know about it, to be very, very serious and devout, and it's the devout aspect that just sends the left quivering and shaking. We cannot have somebody who's going to be judgmental, can't have somebody who has absolutes of right and wrong and good or bad. We can't have somebody like that running the country. No, no, no. That's why the left feels like they are imprisoned when such people have positions of power.

• Human Events links to several reactions.

Lowell interjects:  I liked this one from Phillip Klein on the American Spectator's blog:

When I saw this outrageous story, my first thought was that it read like an Onion parody of how absurdly overboard the media goes in digging up dirt on presidential candidates. It's hard to know whether to chalk this up to liberal bias or religious bigotry that for some reason is tolerated when Mormons are involved. . . . My only hope is that the AP has gone so far overboard with this one, and utterly embarrassed itself to such a degree, that it will force the media to create some boundaries as far as how they cover Romney's religious background.

Back to John:  Now, here is an interesting question in all this.  I am confident the AP did not lay a glove on Romney here, save with those that had already made up their minds.  But they have sure generated a lot of attention.  Could we see an avalanche of completely irrelevant, but controversial "hit" or "gotcha" pieces in the MSM to try and steal readers from the new media?  I wondering the same thing about the current dust-up with James Cameron and his claim to have found Christ's tomb.  BTW, Lowell, I assume you are as offended by Cameron's claims as I am?

Lowell:  Yes, and about as convinced as I was by The da Vinci Code.

Al Mohler is all over Michael Portillo for his purported desire that David Cameron (these are competing leaders for the Conservative Party in Britain) not take his faith so seriously.  I'm offended by the idea myself.  And yet, I have heard in private communication many creedal Christians saying they can only take Romney seriously because they do not think him too serious about his Mormonism.  You know my brethren, what is good for the goose . . . .

Lowell:  And, by the way, where have we heard this before, about a government leader who prays for divine guidance? "I worry because men of power who take instruction from unseen forces are essentially fanatics."  That's Portillo, but it sure sounds like a garden-variety American left-liberal.

And now, a brief aside . . . I really wish I got more on-the-record and less "private communication."  When all the negative is off the record, it strikes me a tacit admission that Romney's faith should NOT be an issue, or at least that treating it as such is indefensible.  Come on people - if that is the case, get over your emotional hang-ups and get serious.  Emotional hang-ups are what drive the left for crying out loud!  Back to our regular scheduled linking and commentary

Tom Bevan of Real Clear Politics interviews Romney.  Like a cool breeze on a hot night - no mention of religion whatsoever.

Lowell:  With apologies for this partisan-leaning comment, I simply must note how pleasant it is to read the unscripted words of a Republican presidential candidate who speaks in paragraphs and does not battle the English language.

John responds: I agree, sadly however, with the exception of our readers and the readers of RCP and a few others, many in American don't listen in paragraphs.

Bill Clinton was America's first true "celebrity" president, and now it appears Al Gore is headed in the same direction, though hopefully, he won't run again.  Just what we need, people getting even LESS serious about elections.

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