I am often accused of being a right-wing troll who is only here to savage liberals and pump up Republicans. I disagree with every premise in that statement-- that I'm right-wing or a troll, that I'm not a liberal, that I'm especially fond of the Republicans at the moment-- and my own description of myself would be something like "liberaltarian" (or possibly Bleeding-Heart Imperialist), but never mind. If you think I'm a Republiscum death-merchant, I'm now going to break the 11th Commandment-- and body-slam two Republicans, one living, one dead. Enjoy it while it lasts.

* * *

Henry Hyde will be remembered for two things. One of them was remembered reverently on right-wing sites last week: the Hyde Amendment barring the federal government from paying for abortions. I'm pro-choice (or to be more accurate, I'm resigned to the inevitability of abortion and therefore favor it being a safe and legal medical procedure rather than an unsafe and illicit one), yet I will grant the Hyde Amendment some admiration for bringing moral suasion to a political issue in the way that has always been best in our political tradition-- civil disobedience. We admire Thoreau for spending a night in jail rather than pay taxes for war-- abolitionists for defying the Fugitive Slave Act-- Rosa Parks for refusing to move. The Hyde Amendment was Congress saying, we will not spend your money on this. We will not be a party to its continuation, even if we can't stop it.

But then there's the other thing he'll be remembered for: hypocrisy of the highest order. Hyde went after Bill Clinton's adultery knowing full well that he too had been an adulterer, that he had betrayed trust not with some modern coed with easy morals and few worries about reputation, but with a married woman with children in the less permissive 1960s. When it came out he regretted that his grandchildren would have to know it, but he never regretted that he had cloaked himself in morality while sanctimoniously condemning his own crime in another. His epitaph ought to be the ringing condemnation from Howards End, for he had the same weakness and self-evasion as that other Henry:

"Not any more of this!" she cried. "You shall see the connection if it kills you, Henry! You have had a mistress--I forgave you. My sister has a lover--you drive her from the house. Do you see the connection? Stupid, hypocritical, cruel--oh, contemptible!--a man who insults his wife when she's alive and cants with her memory when she's dead. A man who ruins a woman for his pleasure, and casts her off to ruin other men. And gives bad financial advice, and then says he is not responsible. These men are you. You can't recognise them, because you cannot connect. I've had enough of your unneeded kindness. I've spoilt you long enough. All your life you have been spoiled. Mrs. Wilcox spoiled you. No one has ever told what you are--muddled, criminally muddled. Men like you use repentance as a blind, so don't repent. Only say to yourself, 'What Helen has done, I've done.'"

"The two cases are different," Henry stammered. His real retort was not quite ready. His brain was still in a whirl, and he wanted a little longer.

"In what way different? You have betrayed Mrs. Wilcox, Helen only herself. You remain in society, Helen can't. You have had only pleasure, she may die. You have the insolence to talk to me of differences, Henry?"

* * *

Mitt Romney is said to be set to give "the speech" on Thursday-- a long anticipated address in which he explains why Americans should not fear a Mormon in the White House. There is indeed something unfair about this requirement that he alone in the race must justify his faith-- it's hard to know why a grown man should believe that God gave a whole separate scripture full of inaccurate historical details to one Joseph Smith about 6000 years after civilization got going, but then it's hard to know why a grown man should believe that millennia ago, God disdained all of his humans except one lone tribe of Israelites, either. More to the point, it's hard to know why a grown electorate should want to see its president hard in the act of trying to swallow these things in a pew. Our brightest presidents-- Lincoln, FDR, Reagan-- have stayed far away from such places and done their own sermonizing and God-invoking without a middleman, and it's only the least subtle strivers (Nixon, Carter, Clinton) who make a big show of it.

But be that as it may, it's an important step for Romney, the press all says so. And he gave a preview of how he'll tackle the issue to Robert Siegel on NPR:

SIEGEL: One last point: In the CNN-You Tube debate, there was a moment when one of the people who submitted a question asked all the candidates whether they believed in every word of the Bible, and two of your rivals – Mayor [Rudolph] Giuliani and Gov. [Mike] Huckabee – both made a point of saying, "Well, in some parts it's allegorical, in some parts it should be interpreted, but yet, I believe in the Bible." And you seemed – if I read you right – to make a point of saying it's the word of God, and even when considering some modification, you backed up, said, "No, I'll just stick with that. It's the word of God." [That] left the impression – and I want to ask you – do you hold a literal belief, say, in the Genesis version of creation?

ROMNEY: You know, I find it hard to believe that NPR is going to inquire on people's beliefs about various parts of the Bible in evaluating presidential candidates, and actually, I don't know that that's where America has come to — that you want to have us describing our particular beliefs with regards to Genesis and the Book of Revelations, so —

SIEGEL: I raise Genesis only because creationism is a national issue in a variety of ways, and –

ROMNEY: Well, but then you could ask me a question and say, "Do you believe that we should teach creationism in our schools, in our science classes and so forth?" and I'm happy to give you an answer to that. But I don't know that going through books of the Bible and asking, "Well, do you believe this book? And do you believe these words?", that that's terribly productive. Particularly when we face global jihad, when we have 47 million people without health insurance, when we have runaway costs in our entitlements, to be asking presidential candidates about their specific beliefs of books of the Bible is, in my view, something which really isn't part of the process which we should be using to select presidents. My point is the Bible is the word of God, and I try and live by it.

Well, to paraphrase Tommy Lee Jones in No Country For Old Men, if this isn't the mush, it'll do till the mush gets here.

Romney's points seem to be:

1) How dare you ask me a specific question on this subject and not allow me to continue forming a thick fog of feelgood inanities?

2) How dare you ask me a question about religion in schools in a way that has anything to do with religion?

3) How dare you ask me about religion when there are problems with religion in this world that we should be talking about?

4) How dare you talk about what you want to talk about when I have talking points about health care and Social Security that I want to change the subject with?

And this is the Republican who might be leading the ticket? Any claims that brittle evasiveness and high dudgeon (as a defense mechanism against uncomfortable questions) are the defining characteristics of entitlement-Dems like Hillary evaporate in the face of this performance, which answers not a question, persuades not a doubter, but tries to get by on whining victimhood.

Mitt, you're a multimillionaire white boy with perfect hair. America's seen too many movies in which you're the bad guy to buy you as the poor lil' victim next to Erin Brockovich in the big finale. Be a man, tell 'em you were raised in your religion and right or wrong it made you the man you are, and you have a chance of getting past everyone thinking it's weird. Whine that it's unfair that they're swiftboating you, and, well, the last whiny rich white guy from Massachusetts to get the nomination didn't do so well in the end, either.