Mr. Romney Goes
to Washington
It was late 2002, and governor-elect
Mitt Romney of Massachusetts had a request. He asked a top aide
to go over his campaign stump speeches and make a list of all
the promises he had made to voters. The aide found that Romney
had made 93 separate promises while campaigning, and another
7 in the days after his election. That made for 100 different
vows. Romney looked over the list and asked that it be distributed
to the members of his incoming cabinet, as well as all the various
department heads in Massachusetts’s state government.
It would serve as a blueprint for the next four years. According
to Romney, he’s made sure he kept every promise.
That’s the type of leadership Romney,
58, tried to personify during his four years as Massachusetts’s
Republican governor: a true-to-his-word problem solver. But
Romney’s term ends next January, and a few weeks back he announced
he won’t seek a second. That’s because another gubernatorial
race would deplete his energy and resources for a much larger
campaign: the 2008 presidential
election. Over two years away from Election Day 2008,
Romney refuses to declare his candidacy.
Romney is an impressive politician,
ready to return to the national stage. He’s been there once
before, in 2002, as the CEO of the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee.
As CEO, Romney had to tackle the problem of Olympic corruption,
and ensure the safety of the first games held in the post-9/11
world. He won on both counts. Romney was the public face of
the games, shepherding athletes, television crews, and tourists
through a successful event. Within a year, he was governor of
Massachusetts.
It will take more for him to become
the 44th president of the United States.
The first liability is religion.
A devout Mormon, Romney’s faith is the subject of an uncomfortable
and confused public debate, and has emerged as perhaps the top
issue of his campaign to date (see Terry Eastland’s “In 2008,
Will it be Mormon in America?” The Weekly Standard, June 6,
2005). The concern is that, while Mormons have enjoyed political
success at the local and state level, they haven’t had similar
success at the national level. In 1968, Romney’s father George
was unable to secure the Republican presidential nomination.
And in 2000, Utah senator Orrin Hatch’s presidential bid was
over almost before it had even begun.
Romney takes all this in stride.
He says that you can divide the American people into three groups.
There are those who care only that a candidate has religious
faith, regardless of the content of that faith. Then there are
those who, “all things being equal,” wouldn’t vote for a Mormon,
but who also realize that all things typically are not equal,
and vote accordingly. Last, there’s the “very small slice” of
people who wouldn’t vote for a Mormon, no matter what. Romney
says that this last group is made up of no more than 2-3 percent
of Americans. He estimates the second group at “11-15 percent.”
Which means that for the “vast majority” of Americans, a candidate’s
religion — or a candidate’s Mormonism — simply isn’t an issue.
Matthew Continetti
The Weekly Standard
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/
Articles/000/000/006/636liiim.asp
--
The Roberts-Alito Court
While it's impossible to know how
any new Justice will vote on specific issues, every indication
is that the new duo will fit somewhere along the Court's conservative-libertarian
wing. With Judge Alito replacing Justice Sandra Day O'Connor,
who in her later years had moved markedly left on the culture,
we can anticipate more skepticism toward both racial preferences
and campaign-finance restrictions on free speech.
We can also expect more respect
for the free exercise of religion clause in the First Amendment,
as opposed to the rigid invocation of the establishment clause's
"wall" of separation between church and state. We'd
also hope for greater respect for property rights, including
a revisiting of last year's egregious Kelo decision,
as well as a revival of the Lopez line of commerce clause
cases showing more respect for federalism. Roe v. Wade
may survive, or not, but we'd expect that individual states
would receive more leeway to enact restrictions on abortion
as per the wishes of their citizens.
This does not mean this will be
a "conservative" Court, however. Four reliable liberals
remain, as well as the protean Justice Anthony Kennedy, who
has been making his own migration to the cultural left and the
make-it-up-as-you-go jurisprudence exemplified by Lawrence
v. Texas (on state laws on homosexuality) and Roper v.
Simmons (on the juvenile death penalty). You can bet the
press corps and liberal politicians will now apply their carrot-and-stick
strategy of praise and castigation to push Justice Kennedy further
to the left and retain a five-vote liberal majority. This will
be especially true on the polarizing cultural disputes that
are better solved democratically.
All of which means that the political
battles over the Courts will continue. It is possible Mr. Bush
will get another Supreme Court nomination before his term ends.
Even if he doesn't, there will be many crucial places on the
appellate courts to fill. There are eight appeals-court nominees
awaiting action and a total of 15 vacancies, excluding Judge
Alito's slot on the Third Circuit.
The White House and Senate should
move with confidence and dispatch to fill these openings with
judges in the Thomas-Scalia and now Roberts-Alito mold, while
they still have the votes to confirm them. One thing we've surely
learned from the past six months of Supreme Court debate is
that elections matter to the courts as much as they do to the
other two branches of government.
Opinion Journal
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007870
--
Smiting
'Daniel'
"Writing earlier this month
about the premiere of NBC's controversial show, 'The Book of
Daniel,' the Nashville Scene's Liz Garrigan observed, 'Something
altogether anticlimactic happened. ... God did not smite Middle
Tennessee or cast into stone those viewers who find intriguing
the character of a fallible Vicodin-addicted clergyman.'
"Maybe not. But the market
sure did. 'Daniel' hath been smote. ...
"NBC announced ... that it
has canceled the show amid a torrent of protest from mostly
religious viewers outraged by its caricature of Jesus Christ
and the panoply of dysfunction masquerading as the family of
the troubled Episcopal priest. ...
"Given the groundswell of
protest, the show lasted only three weeks before NBC defrocked
the comedic drama entirely."
Joel Miller
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/culture/20060130-113214-1154r.htm
