The American Conservative

The folks at the Prospect must be slipping.  Compare Amy Sullivan’s meaty, well-researched Washington Monthly article on Romney’s evangelical problem with Sarah Posner’s “What Evangelical Problem?” to see a significant difference in substance.  Nonetheless, Posner’s article is interesting, and it highlights some of our favourite Romneyites at Evangelicals for Mitt.  The article also does do us all a favour and traces the connections between two of the three that helps explain why they are working together to boost Romney’s candidacy.  However, the article starts out hinting that some of the “biggest power brokers of the Christian right are lovin’ Mitt.”  By some, she means exactly three.  That hardly does away with Romney’s larger problems with evangelicals. 

An interesting tidbit about one of the “biggest power brokers,” Jay Sekulow, that had either escaped my notice the first time around or drifted from memory was that Sekulow was a big booster of Harriet Miers’ nomination.  That doesn’t surprise me, since I was pretty sure at the time many evangelicals were thrilled to have “one of theirs” nominated to the Court in spite of her impressive lack of any qualifications for the position.  In fact, besides the gross cronyism and Mr. Bush’s love of incompetent appointees that were at the heart of the nomination, I assumed Bush had selected Miers because she was an evangelical and that this was his ham-fisted attempt to reward evangelicals for their political support.  Evangelicals certainly were enthusiastic about her, and resented the way she was drop-kicked when it became clear that all serious people were convinced the nomination was a horrifying disaster about to unfold. 

That brings us to Mr. Sekulow’s support for Mitt Romney.  If Mr. Sekulow’s judgement in presidential candidates is as poor as it was in backing a nonentity for the Supreme Court (a nonentity who, let us remember, also had an embarrassing record saying things about abortion that were not all together pro-life), we can assume that Gov. Romney is even less qualified that he might otherwise first appear to be.  Considering that Sam Brownback was instrumental in quashing the Miers nomination, it is especially fitting that he should be in a position to undo another one of the people Mr. Sekulow has chosen to support.  Consider also that, in the extremely unlikely event of a Romney presidency, Sekulow could have significant influence on the kinds of justices a President Romney would select, which means that we have good reason to expect more absurd nominees like Harriet Miers should Romney ever reach the White House.  That and that alone ought to be reason enough to make sure that we make this virtually impossible outcome totally impossible.

And the “larger” question I’ve been pondering of late is this: Why have some elements of the right attacked Governor Romney so viciously? Especially since many of these same people (like the guiding force behind MassResistance) not only don’t support an alternative candidate, they even voted for the Governor in past campaigns when he advanced more liberal views. Why the malice?

These attacks are interesting considering I spend all day every day working for a pro-life and pro-family legal organization and actually wear the uniform of my country as a member of the U.S. Army Reserves. I would take the attacks personally (and sometimes, I admit, it is hard not to), but I also realize an essential truth. This malice is not about me — and it’s not even about Governor Romney.

Yes, that’s right. The malice really has little or nothing to do with Governor Romney. Instead — and this is vitally important to understand — Governor Romney merely represents the vehicle (a highly public vehicle) for grinding axes within the conservative movement itself. ~David French, Evangelicals for Mitt

I can’t speak for anyone else (and I dispute the idea that anyone is being particularly malicious or vicious towards Gov. Romney), but it seems to me that the criticism really is all about Gov. Romney and about little else.  I don’t target him as a representative of a larger group in the conservative movement because he doesn’t represent any larger group–the group he would like to represent is precisely the group whose views he does not, in fact, possess (or has only possessed them for a very short time while he has been making his run).  My criticism of him is not really directed at someone else–it is really all aimed at Candidate Romney. 

He is being vetted as the social conservative he claims to be.  His claims are being challenged based on substantial evidence that gives conservatives pause and makes them wonder if the new Mitt Romney on display is anything other than a fraud being perpetrated on them.  Given the relative novelty of his position as a pro-lifer, in particular, it is shocking that any social conservatives of any kind are still considering him as a serious contender at all to serve as their standard-bearer.  This is, however, the cycle in which Giuliani is also being taken seriously as a contender for the nomination, so clearly standards are slipping all over the place.

But just ask yourself whether anyone who had recently joined a movement or a group would be encouraged to become one of the most prominent members of that group after having been a serious opponent of everything your group represents.  Of course, this wouldn’t happen, and we all know this.  It is virtually unheard of that the novice is allowed to become the abbot after a year or two, and it is almost never the case that the heretic gets to become bishop after a couple years of penance.  Likewise in any secular organisation: the newest club member who has just signed up to pad his resume does not usually get elected president; the freshman House member does not get to be Speaker in the space of a couple years; the branch manager of a bank does not get promoted to be CEO and Chairman of the corporation.  Even if there were no concerns about Romney’s opportunistic “discovery” of the sanctity of life–and there are many concerns–he is playing the role of the greenhorn upstart who wants to run the whole ranch.  Nobody likes that kind of guy (well, unless his name is Obama, in which case all kinds of people pretend to like him), and I mean nobody. 

The criticism against Romney has everything to do with Gov. Romney’s choices and record and the very convenient timing of his profound conversion to supporting the cause of life.  The first President Bush received similarly justified criticism when he suddenly discovered his abiding concern about the sanctity of life–this was around the same time he discovered how profound his problems would be in trying to get re-elected.  If Romney and his supporters want less scrutiny and less harsh criticism, he shouldn’t have egregiously flip-flopped in such a blatantly cynical way or he shouldn’t have decided to run for President in ’08.  In another four or eight years, concern about his “conversion” would have become less acute as he built up more of a record of prolonged commitment to the cause that was not so obviously tied to his ambitions for higher office (assuming, of course, that he changed his mind without having an election on the horizon).  That he chose to become pro-life and run for President at almost the exact same time cries out, “I am pandering for votes in the Republican primaries!”  If there has been any viciousness directed against Gov. Romney, it has only been the disdain smart voters and observers show for particularly clumsy politicians who try to dupe them with claims about their beliefs that do not pass the sniff test.  We don’t like frauds, and we’re not going to put up with their attempts to scam us.

I’m employed by a large pro-life organization and I can tell you that pro-lifers have been very receptive to Romney’s conversion story. Your advice that he “would probably be better off not talking about it all” is off the mark. If he doesn’t address why he’s pro-life after years of being mildly pro-choice, voters won’t accept that he’s sincere. But if he can openly share his conversion story, pro-lifers will gladly accept him into our ranks. ~Nathan Burd (of Evangelicals for Mitt) to Rich Lowry

Except that Lowry’s remarks advising Romney to keep mum about the subject were in the context of saying that he didn’t find the conversion story very credible or convincing at all.  Lowry said:

His account of how he came to change his view on abortion—through the issue of stem-cell research—isn’t very compelling and he would probably be better off not talking about it at all. Fairly or not, people aren’t going to believe it.

Indeed, becoming ardently pro-life by way of an acquaintance with stem-cell research is about as likely as deciding to become an Athonite monk because of exposure to the idea of intelligent design.  It isn’t implausible that thinking and reflecting on the matter over some time might eventually lead you on a path that ends at being ardently pro-life, but to make the leap Romney claims to have made in the space of a year or so is very hard to take.  Lowry is not alone in finding this story to be pretty far-fetched.  As Byron York wrote late last year:

Romney’s description of his conversion strikes some activists on both sides of the abortion issue as unusual. “People do change their minds,” says the pro-choice Kogut. “I’ve seen it. But this is different. It seems completely timed with his presidential ambitions.” Oran Smith, pro-life, questions Romney’s explanation in a more subtle way. In talks with conservative Christians, Smith points out, Romney has often addressed the issue of his Mormon faith by saying something to the effect of, “Our faiths are different, but they bring us to the same positions on the issues.” But by all accounts, Romney was a faithful Mormon when he was solidly pro-choice, and he is a faithful Mormon today when he is solidly pro-life. How, precisely, did his faith bring him to different positions, then and now? “Christians generally like for someone to have a conversion experience and a mea culpa moment,” says Smith. “But he doesn’t have that to turn to. He can’t say, ‘My faith changed, and therefore my views changed.’ That’s the normal thing with Republicans who move to the right on some issues — they claim to have had some spiritual transformation.”

Another problem Romney might have is the sheer recent-ness of his change of views, which occurred at virtually the same moment Romney was making early moves in South Carolina. A change itself is not that unusual, says David Woodard, but the timing is. “There are a lot of conversion stories,” Woodard says, “people who say, ‘I was pro-choice until my daughter got pregnant,’ or ‘I was pro-choice until a friend got pregnant,’ and then they had a lot of misgivings. That worked in the ‘80s, or the early ‘90s, but in 2004, after this issue has been aired for many years? It’s going to be harder.” 

In fact, what Romney’s “conversion” story tells us is that if he is telling the truth about the reasons for becoming pro-life he is basically not telling the truth about the influence of his faith on his “values” or he is simply admitting that his faith is not what informed his pro-life views and therefore his Mormonism becomes an even more significant problem for religious conservatives than it already was because he has effectively acknowledged his faith was not what brought him to the “same place” on these issues and because he has admitted that his faith was not what inspired the change (except in perhaps a very roundabout way).   

Furthermore, this “mildly pro-choice” nonsense that Mr. Burd has offered us has to be challenged.  Romney wasn’t just “mildly pro-choice” prior to his supposed conversion.  As Matt Yglesias has pointed out after citing this week’s Weekly Standard article on Romney’s pro-choice positions in 2002:

As you can see in the Medicaid answer, he wasn’t even a moderate on the issue — Romney was taking a strong, strong pro-choice stance.

This was a man who was adamantly “pro-choice” down the line and who has now become just as adamantly pro-life on just about everything.  Such a radical transformation did not happen, if it happened, because one Dr. Melton came in and talked to him about the fertilisation of ova and the extraction of stem cells.  It is therefore far more reasonable to conclude that the transformation never took place.

These moves may get him closer to the Republican nomination, but whether they reflect deep principles or merely a venture capitalist’s professional sense of what’s required to achieve his goal is already the defining question of the Romney campaign. ~Peter Canellos

Query: If Romney is the great venture capitalist who has a keen grasp of an operation’s weaknesses and the things that need to be done to ensure success, how is it that he can be so oblivious to the huge liability to his campaign that his religion represents?  Is that this particular venture capitalist’s blind spot?

The Congressional Republicans’ demand for “benchmarks” is becoming the GOP’s equivalent of Al Gore’s demand years ago for ”lockboxes,” –an empty term originally intended to convey seriousness of purpose while disguising empty policy prescriptions, but which, by the sheer implausibility of the pose, became a term attracting  deserved disdain.

Republican resolutions calling for “benchmarks” are being understood by people serious about victory in the war as a no confidence lite.  To align with a call for “benchmarks” is to leave the victory caucus.  The Republican leadership should figure this out in a hurry and drop the idea as the genuinely bad idea it was and remains. ~Hugh Hewitt

Hewitt’s Townhall blog colleague Matt Lewis states the obvious that benchmark resolutions are not the same as resolutions against the surge.  Perhaps he, too, will be booted out of the “victory caucus.”  Lewis also has a delicious bit where he points out that Hewitt’s hero, Mitt Romney, also supports benchmarks.  I’m sure the pledge drive to refuse Romney all support in his bid for the White House will begin any day now.  Unless, of course, Hewitt is just an administration lackey using his public influence to badger the Senate into submission to the executive, but that couldn’t be the case, could it?

In many ways, I find Romney an appealing, moderate Republican: competent, reformist, articulate. And then he tried to run as Hewitt-theocon. ~Andrew Sullivan

Which is the worse thing you can say about Romney?  That Andrew Sullivan would have supported him, or that Hugh Hewitt does support him?  This is a very difficult question.  It will probably have to be settled by coin-toss, so dreadful are the alternatives.

Brownback has some cross-over appeal. Anti-war, big government Christianism has a real constituency. ~Andrew Sullivan

Brownback may or may not have crossover appeal.  He is a U.S. Senator, after all, which does require, even in deepest Kansas of paranoid liberal myth-making, some support from people beyond his core partisan supporters.  But whatever crossover appeal he does have, be it on his cockamie “compassionate conservative” message, his “save Darfur” do-gooding or his support for amnesty, has nothing to do with his views on the war.  His general views on the war, as I have been saying again and again, place him squarely in the mainstream of Republican opinion.  He continues to support the war just as fiercely as ever–it is only the profound confusion of surge proponents and opponents that has made Brownback’s position on this one plan make him appear to be some sort of antiwar Republican.  Nothing could be more wrong.  Here, again, is his statement on Iraq from his presidential campaign announcement:

We are a nation at war. I just returned from Iraq and Afghanistan. Our troops–the finest, most courageous people our nation has to offer–are fighting for the cause of liberty in places that have never known her. It is a long fight. We will win. We cannot lose our will to win! We must win to redeem our troops’ sacrifice. Let us resolve to have a bipartisan strategy for the war. We need unity here to win over there. This is not the time for partisanship on any side. Lives–and our future–are at stake. 

In any case, the Sullivan remark quoted above would be from the same clever political analyst who has determined that the “big-government Christianists” (who, in reality, do not exist) and the “fundamentalist” mentality they possess were the chief moving forces behind the Iraq war.  The point is not that his prior claim is correct (it is ludicrous), but that he cannot really expect us to view the “Christianists” as the force of utter malevolence he has made them out to be if they are also now forming a real constituency against the war. 

The reality is somewhat different from both fantasies that Sullivan has come up with: most Christian conservatives, who are not “big-government,” supported the war out of their sense of patriotism and (surely misguided) deference to the President, and they continue to support it for these same reasons.  There are in any case very few “antiwar evangelicals,” as Sullivan has called them, and Sam Brownback is neither antiwar nor is he any longer an evangelical.  Once again, opposition to the surge is not opposition to the war, and being anti-surge is not being antiwar.  Everyone who can read a newspaper, except apparently Hugh Hewitt and Andrew Sullivan, understands this.

We dirty Christians and Jews only have holidays.  Shiites have holy days, so they must be on a higher moral plane, I guess.  ~NRO Reader

Now I have no love for the Times, whose story about the Ashura bombings prompted this bit of hysteria, but even I find this sort of reading-pro-Muslim-bias-between-the-lines to be absurd and risible.  Holiday means holy day.  Holiday the English contraction of the two words into one.  If it often is used with a different sense in the English-speaking world today, that is the result of increased secularisation of our holy days themselves, which can only be rather indirectly laid at the door of The New York Times.  More relevant to the story at hand is that it reports on the deaths of dozens in yet another example of the appalling security situation in Iraq.  If I were the average NRO reader, who probably still thinks the media are keeping the “good news” from the American public in a treasonous plot to undermine the war effort, I would also want to do everything possible to talk about anything else in this story other than the event it was reporting.

As GOPers debate ideological comfort, Dems argue over experience. But much like Romney, Obama’s survival will depend more on how he performs, than the attacks he draws from opponents. ~Hotline

This is true.  Not having much of a record worth mentioning on the social issues he now claims to champion, Romney has to be able to win over the doubters, for there will be many doubters.  Right now, people who are not immediately inclined to accept his “conversion” tale aren’t accepting him. 

Given the performance Gov. Romney gave at the NRI Summit the other day, where even his boosters have acknowledged he was on the defensive when speaking about his conservatism (perhaps when you know your position as a conservative isn’t at all tenable, it can make you feel very nervous in a room full of people who expect you to be conservative), he isn’t performing terribly well.  When his explanation of how he became pro-life rings hollow with people, as it often does, he says, “But look at what I’ve done!”  But then when people look at what he’s done and conclude that it isn’t very much at all (or that he was largely unsuccessful in winning the fights that he got into), he shouts, like an adolescent who is being contradicted, “I am so pro-life!”  Usually, when you have to keep insisting on it, and almost appear to be convincing yourself in the process, it won’t obvious to anyone else that it is true and it means that you really need to work on your delivery. 

As Brownback keeps hammering him on this point, watch as Romney’s star fades.  Unfortunately, that can only mean the ascension of Amnesty Sam to a position of prominence.  The Party of Immigration, Imperialism and Insolvency is not doing anything to convince me that it will be changing its ways.

We need to recast the geo-strategic reference points of our Iraq policy. Some commentators have compared the Bush plan to a “Hail Mary” pass in football — a desperate heave deep down the field by a losing team at the end of the game. Actually, a far better analogy for the Bush plan is a draw play on third down with 20 yards to go in the first quarter. The play does have a chance of working if everything goes perfectly, but it is more likely to gain a few yards and set up a punt on the next down, after which the game can be continued under more favorable circumstances. ~Sen. Richard Lugar

Apparently, we need to recast our geostrategic reference points into a series of football reference points.  That should make them more amenable to the limited understanding of Mr. Bush, who was, after all, a “yell leader” in his younger days.  If we’re playing a “field position” game, as Sen. Lugar absurdly describes it, that means we had better have an awfully good “punt kicker.”  In the real world that means we would have to be something like a back-up plan when the surge (sorry, “draw play”) fails.  (For those paying attention, we don’t have any such back-up plan.) 

It will probably fail because the Iraqi government (sorry, I mean the “blockers”) is actually working with the death squads (er, “defensive line”) and our “quarterback” will get “tackled behind the line” for a “loss of five.”  Query: do we really want politicians who are routinely exposed to the Redskins to be using football analogies in connection with wars?   

See Michael Crowley‘s post on the same.