Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Tuesday that President Barack Obama's administration has "fought against religion" and sought to substitute a "secular" agenda for one grounded in faith.
Obama's campaign seized on the characterization, calling Romney's comments "disgraceful."
Romney rarely ventures into social issues in his campaign speeches, but people participating in a town hall-style meeting one week before the Michigan primary asked how he would protect religious liberty.I'm guessing this means this message tests well in focus groups -- not to speak ill of Mr. Romney, which I am done with, but rather as a compliment to his extraordinary message discipline and the professionalism of his campaign. This is a better-formulated version of Mr. Santorum's remarks re: 'phony theology,' although in fairness, Mr. Romney wasn't speaking off the cuff.
Not that Mr. Santorum is backing off.
“Rick Santorum offered no apologies Tuesday for a controversial speech he gave in 2008 when he talked about the threat of Satan in America.
“‘I’m a person of faith. I believe in good and evil,’ Santorum said in response to questions from CNN…Well, if you're going to fight a Crusade, maybe the Crusader is the guy you want.
Either way, it's turning out to be a big deal.
Have a good Lent. I'm giving up alcohol for the fast, which means that the beer I have in front of me could easily be the last beer I ever have -- after all, I ride a motorcycle everywhere. It's a good one, though, a worthy end (if end it should prove to be).
Goodnight.
15 comments:
I'm giving up giving up things.
You sound like a certain boy I know. He wanted to give up chores.
I am more than willing to give up reading or hearing anything more about the GOP primary.
It just gets weirder every day, though I would have thought that after a certain point that would be impossible.
I might be willing to go along with you in that. However, it doesn't seem like a sacrifice, exactly.
I'm doing it for the children.
"I"m doing it for the children."
If only to temporarily quell the Tourette's outbursts, eh?
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Exactly :p
Well, let's have a truce, then. No more about the primary until Easter.
Good luck with that.
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I'm giving up truces....
Eric Hines
I don't want to make any promises about what I will or will not write about. Chiefly because most mornings I am hard pressed to find time to read anything (much less write about it!) before I have to drive in to work.
Some times what jumps out at me (for whatever reason) is going to be related to the primary.
That said, I know we have differences. I don't want to aggravate you or pound on Santorum. Often, what interests me about a kerfuffle is what people *don't* talk about. With the Santorum/Satan thing, what genuinely surprised me was that Protestants weren't going... "Duuuuuuude...."
So I wrote about it from that aspect: hey, everyone else is exercised about Satan but what leaped out at me was the dissing of Protestants.
Admittedly, I often see different things in the news from most folks. But in the end, whoever gets the nomination will get the nomination. I hated McCain and was crushed when it became apparent to me that he was the nominee but he was still better than Hillary or Teh Won.
So in the mean time, I'll stick up for what I believe and I fully expect others to do the same :)
It occurs to me that I've never voted for a primary candidate in a contested race who has gone on to win the nomination, let alone the election. In fact, the only time I've ever voted for a nominee who won the general was 2004. If it works out for you, you'll have to let me know what it's like.
I strongly suspect that whoever we nominate, Obama is going to be re-elected. That's just my gut assessment.
So in many ways I would almost prefer if Romney didn't get the nomination, except for the fact that I really do think he's what this country needs: someone who doesn't come across as an ideologue.
When we can't even pass a budget, you know things have got to change. I understand partisanship, but things have become so poisonous that both sides are paralyzed. More than anything else, it reminds me of a bitter divorce in which both sides have lost sight of what really matters: the kids.
...Obama is going to be re-elected.
In the special Hell about which I fantasize for Obama, he would indeed be re-elected--with a veto-proof Republican majority elected in each house of Congress.
But my fantasies rarely come true....
Eric Hines
It is the children we have to remember, yes: and not only our own, but the ones in the poorer regions of the world, whose lives would be so much worse without an America that held open the trade lanes; and in the regions where less benign powers might stretch their hands forward.
I don't know that the feat can be managed even so; the fiscal problems alone are so great that I don't see how they can be resolved. The fact that we have turned into two competing camps who fear and despise each other doesn't help. (If you think your annoyance at Santorum is outstanding, you ought to hear what my liberal friends think of him -- but it's every bit as bad for every Republican in Congress, 'get Romney off my uterus,' and they won't even speak of Gingrich at all.)
I'm not sure these problems can be fixed; I wonder how long they can even be managed.
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