“We will not play by two sets of rules,” say his managers, announcing a superPAC to offset Republican money to defeat the President, despite his denunciation of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision that unleashed tons of hard-to-identify funds for negative ads.

As Mitt (“Corporations are people”) Romney edges closer to the GOP nomination, an Obama official explains the reversal: “We’ve been watching…the Republican primary process, the most recent filing deadline and the Koch brothers conference and what’s been coming out of that: a half billion dollars to defeat the president.”

If corporations are indeed people, they are the most greedy, selfish and ruthless in the society. During years of sitting on boards of directors, I was always astonished by what happened to individuals (including myself) when they sat around a corporate table.

Institutional roles acted simultaneously as a narcotic that suppressed conscience and a stimulant to bring out every bit of low cunning to profit the organization. I have seen religious leaders, academics and business statesmen propose solutions to problems that would make a carnival pitchman blush.

If corporations bear any resemblance to individual human beings, they are people who have been lobotomized of all social instincts except their need to protect themselves, profit and grow.

MORE.

The fact that some people — predominantly evangelicals — believe that Mormonism is a cult and not a religion is not a disqualifier. I happen to believe that it is a bit of both, while there are aspects of other faiths that are . . . uh, unusual compared to the religious mainstream.

The fact that the Mormon church does not respect separation of church and state is not a disqualifier. Highly aggravating, but not a disqualifier.

The fact that the Mormon church, which is referred to as the General Motors of religions is obscenely wealthy with an estimated tax-exempt wealth in excess of $40 billion, is not a disqualifier.

The fact that the Mormon church is anti-gay and spends buckets of money to try to block same sex marriage initiatives, sometimes through shadow groups that intentionally hide their ties to the church, is not a disqualifier.

The fact that the Mormon church was extremely slow to welcome men of African descent into its priesthood, failing to do so until 1978, and remains overwhelmingly white is not a disqualifier.

The fact that some vestiges of polygamy still exist on the fringes of the Mormon church is not a disqualifier. (Romney’s great-great grandfather had 12 wives and his great grandparents moved to Mexico to avoid anti-polygamy laws.)

And the fact that Romney refuses to criticize less positive aspects of the church and reaffirms his faith in only the most general terms also is not a disqualifier, nor has he faced the kind of scrutiny that he did in 2008 when he was prompted to give a speech in Dallas reaffirming his faith.

What is at issue is:

* The incestuous relationship between the church, Romney and Bain Capital, the private equity house where he became filthy rich as CEO.

Bain has donated millions of dollars in stock to the church, and while there is nothing illegal about a firm making charitable contributions, the relationship is troubling because neither Bain nor the church are likely to make public any details. Same for Romney, who has released personal income tax information only because his refusal to do so became a drag on his campaign.

* Whether, in the event Romney is elected, he would be influenced by a church that makes meddling in politics a full-time preoccupation. Would he drag its beliefs into our lives?

In 1964, when his father George was in his second year as Michigan governor, he received a letter from a member of the top Mormon governing body reminding him of the teaching of the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith that “the Lord had placed the curse upon the Negro” and urged him to drop his support for the 1964 Civil Rights Bill lest God strike him dead for his apostasy.

In response, George Romney redoubled his commitment and led a march the following year in downtown Detroit in solidarity with Martin Luther King for voting rights in Selma, Alabama. It seems less likely that Mitt Romney would have his father’s backbone if the church beckoned.

As I noted, questions about Romney and his financial relationship with the church and its relationship with Bain will go unanswered. This is because his faith isn’t creating ripples this election year — a good thing in and of itself — despite increased interest in Mormonism because of “Big Love,” the recently ended HBO series on a fictional fundamentalist Mormon family that practices polygamy.

Finally, Romney fulminates about religious liberty, which he recently has been wont to do, at his own risk. Same for gay rights.

This will inconveniently remind voters of less mainstream aspects of Mormonism past and present, as well as the fact that the church by some estimates dropped $20 million bucks into the fight to pass Proposition 8 in California. The now overturned ballot initiative mandated that there be a provision in the state constitution that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized.

The Nazi legacy is an understandably heavy burden for Germany, even today. This leaves Germans emotionally vulnerable to comparisons to their 20th century forebears. And with the country exercising ever-more influence over its European Union allies, cutting remarks that include such comparisons are blossoming like mushrooms after a spring rain. So how to deal with it? For Germany’s Die Zeit, Bernd Ulrich writes that in order to operate as the ‘U.S. of Europe,’ Germans will have to grit their teeth until this particular phase of European history passes.

For Germany’s Die Zeit, Bernd Ulrich writes in small part:

It doesn’t take much to figure out why so many Nazi comparisons are being made right now: For the first time since 1945, Germany is stepping up with all its power, not because it wants to, but because the European debt crisis has made the economically-strongest economy into the most politically powerful. Germany is now profoundly intervening in the domestic affairs of others.

The country is gradually taking on the role in Europe that the U.S. has long played on the global level: As the country that used and occasionally abused its power, was to blame for everything, was supposed to save everyone, and had to endure insults for how it went about doing it. What evil hasn’t been imputed to the Americans? The CIA was behind every evil, and Americans were constantly being accused of imperialism.

But there was one thing the Americans could never be accused of: sending six million Jews to their deaths and plunging half the world into war. In the case of Germany, ranting against the leading power that is at once quite understandable, human and often justified, very often takes on an entirely different pallor, which serves to put an end to any discussion or serious exchange.

For quite a while, Germany’s new role will continue to result in a proliferation of Nazi comparisons. Like it or not, we will have to bear it and wait until it passes. However, in such stoicism there is also a serious problem. That has to do with the German historical paradox, which may be described as follows: The only way Germans can prevent their past from repeating itself is by never being absolutely sure that it won’t.

READ ON IN ENGLISH OR GERMAN AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.

Earlier this week, a live online video chat featured President Obama and Jennifer Weddel, the wife of an unemployed engineer whose husband has been out of a job for three years. Weddel asked the president: “Why does the government continue to extend H-1B visas when there are tons of Americans just like my [engineer] husband with no job?”

Caught off guard, Obama tried to deflect Weddel’s argument by inquiring what type of engineer her husband is. When Weddel replied “semiconductor,” Obama resorted to elusive double talk before promising to review his case further. To add to Obama’s embarrassment, Wedell is unemployed in Texas, a tech industry hub.

The problem that the president unexpectedly faced is that semiconductor engineers are in one of the categories which IT industry executives have been telling Congress can’t be found in the United States. And the White House, apparently without bothering to check the facts, has acted on industry misinformation. From the El Paso border this summer to the United States Capitol in January where he gave the State of the Union address and at every stop in between, Obama has aggressively called for increasing the 65,000 H-1B visas issued annually.

The Weddel-Obama dust up set off a flurry of Internet postings and analysis among organizations that have insisted for years that no shortage of American engineers or any other classification of worker exists. After all, when there are so many million unemployed Americans, how can there be shortages?

Indeed, the Center for Immigration Studies, a non-partisan Washington, D.C.-based research organization that favors less immigration, found that 1.8 million Americans under age 66 have engineering degrees but not an engineering job.

The study, “Is President Obama Right about Engineers?” is based on data collected by the Census Bureau from the American Community Survey. Dr. Steven Camarota, its author, found the following: 1) 101,000 U.S. engineers looking for a job can’t find any type of work at all; 2) 244,000 engineers are unemployed and have stopped looking for work and 3) 1.5 million engineers have jobs but don’t work as engineers.

In his numerous supportive speeches about lifting the visa cap, Obama has repeatedly referred to the foreign-born workers he wants to bring to the United States as “highly skilled.” But Dr. Camarota’s research revealed that in 2010 there were 25,000 unemployed Americans with engineering degrees who have a Master’s or Ph.D. degree and another 68,000 with advanced degrees not in the labor force. There were also 489,000 U.S.-born individuals with graduate degrees who were working but not as engineers.

Another important consideration: in the two decades since its inception, is that the H-1B visa has been used for non-engineering fields like teaching, pharmacy and even football coaching as happened a few years ago at Tennessee’s Austin Peay University. No job is safe.

Today’s lesson is that every story has two sides. The administration has listened closely to the business elites who want more visas. Now, the hour has come for the White House to pay equal attention to unemployed Americans’ pleas.

Joe Guzzardi is a Californians for Population Stabilization Senior Writing Fellow. His columns about immigration and other social issues have been syndicated since 1986. Contact him at joeguzzardi@capsweb.org. His column is licensed to run on TMV in full.

One other thing about culture wars: One side typically has absolutely no understanding of what the other is trying to say.

That is why the battle over whether religious institutions should be required to cover contraception under the new health care law was so painful — and why it was so hard to comprehend why President Obama, who has been a critic of culture wars for so long, did not try to defuse this explosive question from the beginning.

It’s also why he was right, finally, to reach a compromise that respected the legitimate concerns of each side. He should have done this at the outset, but far better late than never.

That so many liberal Catholics supported the church’s core claim surprised both Catholic conservatives and more secular liberals. There are lessons here, and that includes lessons for Obama.

Those of us who are liberal Catholics have remained in the church for reasons beyond tribal loyalties or a desire to honor the traditions of our parents and grandparents. At the heart of the love many of us have for the church — despite our frustrations over its abysmal handling of the sexual abuse scandal and its reluctance to grant women the rights they are due — is a profound respect for the fact on so many questions that count, Catholicism walks its talk and harnesses its faith to the good works the Gospel demands.

When it comes to lifting up the poor, healing the sick, assisting immigrants and refugees, educating the young (especially in inner cities), comforting orphaned and abandoned children, and organizing the needy to act in their own interest, the church has been there with resources and an astoundingly committed band of sisters, priests, brothers and lay people. Organizations such as Catholic Charities, the Catholic Health Association, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, and Catholic Relief Services make the words of Jesus come alive every day.

For liberals who sided with the church in this controversy, the most vexing problem with the original exemption on contraception is that it defined “religious” so narrowly that the reality that these organizations go out of their way to serve non-Catholics was held against them. Their Gospel-inspired work was defined as non-religious. This violated the very essence of Christian charity and the church’s social justice imperatives.

Some conservative Catholics still insist that the relief from regulation that Obama offered is not enough. I hope they reconsider, especially since the Catholic service providers most affected by the revised rule welcomed it. What bothers liberal Catholics about the arguments advanced by some of our conservative friends is that the Catholic right seems so eager to focus the church’s witness to the world on issues such as abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research and, now, perhaps, contraception that they would effectively, if not necessarily intentionally, relegate the church’s social justice work and teaching to second-class status.

Liberal Catholics were proud to stand with conservatives in defending the church’s religious liberty rights in carrying out its social and charitable mission. Now, we’d ask conservatives to consider that what makes the Gospel so compelling — especially for the young, many of whom are leaving the church — is the central role it assigns to our responsibilities to act on behalf of the needy, the left-out and the abandoned.

And we’d ask our non-Catholic liberal friends to think about this, too. Many of us agreed that broad contraception coverage was, as a general matter, a good thing, and we shared their concern for women’s rights. But we were troubled that some with whom we usually agree seemed to relish a fight with the church and defined any effort to accommodate its anxieties as “selling out.”

As a young politician put it in 2006, “There are some liberals who dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant, insisting on a caricature of religious Americans that paints them as fanatical, or thinking that the very word ‘Christian’ describes one’s political opponents, not people of faith.”

Barack Obama, who spoke those words, finally figured out that a sensible compromise on contraception was far better than a running cultural and religious war. The administration would do well not to lose track of that guy again.

E.J. Dionne’s email address is ejdionne(at)washpost.com. (c) 2012, Washington Post Writers Group

Daryl Cagle, MSNBC.com

This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to appear on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

While positive ratings for Congress remain at an all-time low, more voters than ever see the Republican agenda in Congress as extreme.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 35% of Likely Voters say it would be more accurate to describe the agenda of Republicans in Congress as mainstream, while 52% feel extreme is a more accurate description. Thirteen percent (13%) are not sure.

By election day we’ll know if Republicans have been correct and that they have accurately reflected what the bulk of Americans (which also means independents, moderates and centrist Democrats and not just those attending CPAC or listening to Rush Limbaugh) think or they are guilty of overreach.

If it’s the latter they’ll get a signal on election day..

Rick Santorum suggested on Sunday that Mitt Romney’s campaign may have rigged a straw poll of conservative activists by paying the entrance fee for supporters.

Romney beat Santorum by 7 points Saturday in a straw poll of almost 3,500 attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Santorum pointed out that Ron Paul had won the poll in both of the past two years “because he just trucks in a lot of people pays for their ticket, they come in and vote and then leave.”

“I don’t try to rig straw polls,” Santorum said on CNN’s State of the Union.

Paul actually came in last on Saturday, having declined to address the conference or to activate his base for the straw poll. But Santorum said that wasn’t the case with Romney.

“You have to talk to the Romney campaign and how many tickets they bought,” Santorum said. “We’ve heard all sorts of things.”

Some thoughts on this:

GO HERE for more weblog reaction.

The Bishops are demanding an end to any rule that requires any insurance company to cover any contraception or family planning as basic health issues for women. This is just the latest iteration of a centuries old objection to women having control of their bodies, their lives, their happiness and their liberty by the conservative power-focused elites running the Roman Catholic Church. This objection manifests itself in screeds against anything that treats sex as an activity separate from breeding and/or free from the dictates of Church Law.

And yet, I don’t think this latest play is about sex or even the Church trying to control the lives of women—I think it is about power and that sex, women, gay marriage and a host of other culture warrior issues are the pathway that they see as the golden road.

Yes the golden path back to “the good old days” before the reformation and the American and French revolutions.

For anybody who has looked at the history of the Catholic Church (and any organized religion for that matter) a key part of their activities over time becomes how to maintain power, privilege and influence—and all the goodies that come with it. Eventually that is all that matters for the institution. The greatest success in this effort always comes when political leaders bow to the dictates of the Holy Roman Church and agree to make State Law subservient to Church Law. Back in the days of Kings and Queens you only had a handful of elites you had to work with and the mutual pursuit of power inspired many of them to treat Church Law as State Law. It worked for a long while and then came the Reformation, Protestantism, King Henry, the Enlightenment, Democracy and eventually a desire by more and more people to make their laws free of religion and the dictates of any Church.

The United States of America was founded on the belief that Church and State are separate and that the Laws of this Nation trump the laws of any religion—including the Roman Catholic Church. As you can imagine, this has made the conservative wing of the Catholic Church quite sad. For over a century they have been on the losing end of many political fights—especially when it comes to women in America. The Church opposed suffrage for women and any effort over the years that might free women from the Church sanctioned role of breeder. The Church has fought every form of contraception and lost most battles. They also have lost the battle of finding any American politician who was willing to embrace the idea that US Law should be subservient to Church Law—until now.

While there are two Catholics in the race, Santorum and Gingrich, only Santorum is the true cultural warrior who could be counted on to place the will of the Bishops above the Constitution.  Once again the Bishops would have the power they desire.

Supporting a Santorum surge is an opportunity for power and that is why the Bishops are doubling down on opposing any insurance company offering any contraception or family planning services to anybody, anywhere. Ultimately the entire issue is about power and not about sex.

Of course the Catholic hierarchy is so out of touch even with American Catholics they can’t see that there is no possibility that Santorum could win a national election.  I suspect they may also fear the growing power of the Church of Latter Day Saints and would not like to see the Mormon Romney in the White House.

Cross posted at Newshoggers

Catholic voters largely approve of President Obama’s new policy on contraception, according to a poll released Saturday by groups that support the policy.

Supporters say the poll shows that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and congressional Republicans, who oppose the new policy as an affront to religious freedom, are out of step with the public. The new survey was conducted Friday evening, after Obama announced new “accommodations” for some religious employers.

According to the poll, 57 percent of Catholic voters — and 59 percent of Catholic women — support the mandate Obama outlined Friday. Under the new policy, women who work for institutions like Catholic hospitals and universities can obtain birth control from their insurance company without a co-pay, but their employers don’t have to include contraception in their healthcare plans.

Public Policy Polling conducted the new poll on behalf of a coalition that includes Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America. The findings indicate that Obama gained some ground with Catholics by alterning the policy. An earlier PPP poll found that 53 percent of Catholic voters approved of the White House’s original mandate, which required religious employers to provide contraception coverage directly.

Could Andrew Sullivan be right? He argues on The Daily Beast that rather than Obama committing a horrible, dumb political mistake, the way he handled it could be a political trap for Republicans. This poll would suggest (if it’s accurate) that it could turn into one, whether that was Obama’s intent or not. Here is a chunk of Sullivan’s analysis:

Suddenly no-drama Obama was neck deep in the kind of religious warfare he vowed to avoid. Many pundits—led by older white Catholic men, such as Joe Scarborough and my friend Chris Matthews and even the fair-minded liberal Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne—declared his decision on contraception as not only morally wrong but a politically disastrous violation of religious freedom. Suddenly the specter of 2004—when the culture-war issue of same-sex marriage gave Ohio and the entire election to George W. Bush—reemerged, and some conservative Catholic Democrats began to panic. Within the administration, almost all the white Catholic men opposed the decision—from Bill Daley to Leon Panetta. But critically, the support for the decision came from women, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and key adviser Valerie Jarrett chief among them. So Obama didn’t ignite just a culture war but a religious and gender war as well. Welcome to the election focused almost entirely on jobs.

But the conflict-driven headlines and predictions of disaster for Obama are, in my view, deeply misleading. Right now, they are driven both by cable news’s love of a good fight and high ratings and by the Republican primary campaign, in which the candidates, especially Newt Gingrich and Santorum, are desperately battling to unify the evangelical base, which is convinced its faith is somehow under attack. In the longer run, however, I suspect this sudden confluence of kerfuffles will be seen as one of the last gasps of the culture war, not its reignition. That’s especially possible since Obama’s swift walk-back last Friday, when he proposed an utterly sensible compromise, which exempts both churches and other religious institutions that cater to the general public from directly covering or paying for birth control, shifting the coverage requirement to insurance companies. So Catholic organizations will be able to stay out of the contraception question entirely, while contraception for all women will be kept free of charge. Instead of being lose-lose for the president, it became win-win. Most Catholics will be fine with this compromise, as are the Catholic Health Association and Planned Parenthood. But the bishops? They’ve gone out on a very long limb. This could be the moment when the culture-war tide finally turns and the social wedge issues long deployed so effectively by the Republican right begin to come back and bite them.

AND:

The more Machiavellian observer might even suspect this is actually an improved bait and switch by Obama to more firmly identify the religious right with opposition to contraception, its weakest issue by far, and to shore up support among independent women and his more liberal base. I’ve found by observing this president closely for years that what often seem like short-term tactical blunders turn out in the long run to be strategically shrewd. And if this was a trap, the religious right walked right into it.

Indeed, I thought the political war over contraception was over years ago.

On the other hand, I also thought that the battle over evolution was over years ago. So what do I know?

A bit more of Sullivan:

And on the issue of contraception itself, studies have shown that a staggering 98 percent of Catholic women not only believe in birth control but have used it. How is it possible to describe this issue as a violation of individual conscience, when no one is forced to use contraception against their will, and most Catholics have already consulted their conscience, are fine with the pill, and want it covered? This is not like abortion, a far, far graver issue…

….In other words, this is a potential political winner for President Obama, not just among liberals, many women, younger voters, and moderates—but among American Catholics! And even more so in light of the pragmatic compromise announced last week, which puts the administration precisely where it should be, and in a much better place than it was before the announcement, and reinforces Obama’s reputation as a man willing to compromise, one of his core strengths among independent voters. I found the original rule a step too far. To my mind, when religious institutions play invaluable roles in helping the poor, curing the sick, and housing the homeless, they should be rewarded, not punished. And within reasonable limits, their right to set their own rules on health-care plans should be respected. One reason they do such great work is their religious convictions. We should celebrate that—and try to balance their views (however wrongheaded we may consider them to be) with other legitimate social goals.

But some Republicans and conservative Catholics have already rejected the compromise.

Of course, the Bishops have rejected Obama’s plan – which leads to the question as to whether these numbers could change. Or whether, in the end, as Sullivan suspects, Obama is as dumb politically as Machiavelli.

Also be sure to read Taylor Marsh’s post HERE.

Mitt Romney, the perpetually questioned front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, had a rough week. Three embarrassing losses to Rick Santorum in Tuesday’s non-binding contests led to questions about Romney’s conservative bona fides just in time for GOP activists, gathering at their annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, to collectively grumble about it. But in two narrow, largely symbolic victories on Saturday, Romney reclaimed the headlines. Never mind the details. He was winning again.

Romney won the non-binding Maine caucuses on Saturday night with 39% of the vote, edging out small government standard-bearer Ron Paul by 3 percentage points and fewer than 200 votes….

….Earlier in the day, Romney dethroned Paul in the CPAC’s straw poll, winning 38% of activists’ support to Santorum’s 31%.

….Neither victory moved Romney any closer to the nomination. Maine’s contest was merely a preference poll and did not allocate any delegates, which will be selected at a state convention in May. CPAC’s straw poll did not provide any accurate measure of national sentiment, and the national survey results actually showed a tightening race with Santorum. But both wins illustrated that Republicans are still able to get excited about Romney, albeit in crowds of just a few hundred in these cases, and put aside the narrative that he is struggling to close the deal. For now.

Yes the key is the “for now” but that can mean a great deal in politics — because it can break that downward spiral that a campaign can get in and never recover from. Saturday gave Mitt Romney a new political lease on life.

For now.

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2012/02/11/with-saturday-victories-romney-retakes-control-of-the-gop-narrative/?xid=newsletter-daily#ixzz1mAuUhp8b

We know President Obama did something Friday related to rules covering contraception and health insurance for employees of religious organizations. But how do you characterize his action in a short headline? What’s the appropriate verb to follow “Obama…”?

Saturday’s front pages went in many, telling, directions. The Boston Globe and Seattle Times were among those who said, “Obama bends.” But The Wall Street Journal and the Providence Journal declared, “Obama retreats.”

Which was it, a bend or a retreat?

Several major papers, led by The New York Times and Miami Herald, took the most cautious approach by saying, “Obama adjusts.” A similarly neutral choice was “shifts,” according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington Post, and the San Jose Mercury News.

Perhaps the most benign selection, serving to cleanse the story of all meaning, came on page one of the Los Angeles Times, “Obama reacts.”

Other verbs of note: Sacramento Bee, “gives ground”; San Diego Union-Tribune, “revises”; Cleveland Plain Dealer, “eases”; Tampa Bay Times, “yields”; Fort Worth Star-Telegram, “finds compromise”; the Akron Beacon Journal, “reverses”; the Financial Times, “modifies.”

The Chicago Sun-Times and the Cincinnati Enquirer staked out much more aggressive positions with the words, “backed down.”

Rarely does a newspaper headline present such a challenge to editors, some of whom were clearly driven by objectivity, while others allowed their editorial stance to affect the front-page treatment. It underscores how divided the nation is on an issue that seems, to many on both sides, to be rather clear cut.

As for New York’s Post and Daily News, you’d never know from their front pages what Obama did Friday. Both papers put contraception aside, apparently, for full-page celebrations of Beyonce’s baby.

Peter Funt is a writer and speaker and can be reached at www.CandidCamera.com. ©2012 Peter Funt. Columns distributed exclusively by: Cagle Cartoons, Inc., newspaper syndicate. His column is licensed to run in full on TMV.

Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney bounced back from midweek losses in three states to narrowly win Maine’s caucuses on Saturday, hours after winning a straw poll of Republican conservative activists.

Results of Maine’s non-binding straw poll showed the former Massachusetts governor with 39 percent support, or 2,190 votes, ahead of libertarian Texas Congressman Ron Paul with 36 percent or 1,996 votes.

Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, who did not campaign in Maine, won 18 percent and 6 percent of the vote, respectively. Despite signs of higher voter turnout, the votes cast in Maine appeared to be only slightly above 2008 levels.

The outcome capped a good day for Romney, who unexpectedly lost to Santorum, a social conservative, in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado on Tuesday to generate new doubts about his appeal to party conservatives. Republicans are seeking a nominee to challenge Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 6 general election.

Romney earlier won a closely watched straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, with 38 percent support to Santorum’s 31 percent.

Romney’s rivals may discount his double header today but it was significant. Don’t count him out (yet) or Rick Santorum totally in (yet).

After a terrible political week, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has gotten some good news in terms of imagery and the argument he’s making that he is conservative and was a “severely conservative” governor: he has won the highly touted Washington Times/CPAC straw poll, which many had expected former Senator Rick Santorum to win:

Mitt Romney won The Washington Times/CPAC Presidential Straw Poll on Saturday, and also nipped Rick Santorum as the top choice of conservatives nationwide, according to a new version of the poll conducted for the first time this year that suggests Mr. Romney retains strong support among self-identified conservatives.

Mr. Romney won 38 percent of the straw poll, which counted the votes of 3,408 activists gathered for the Conservative Political Action Conference, which ran from Thursday through Saturday at a hotel in Washington.

Mr. Santorum was second with 31 percent, Newt Gingrich was third with 15 percent and Rep. Ron Paul was fourth with 12 percent — far below his showing the last two years, when he won with 31 in 2010 and 30 percent in 2011.

In the national survey, meanwhile, Mr. Romney barely topped Mr. Santorum 27 percent to 25 percent, with Mr. Gingrich in third place at 20 percent and Mr. Paul again trailing at 8 percent.

The poll results have no official meaning in the GOP’s presidential nomination battle but do give Mr. Romney a boost as he seeks to regain the momentum he appeared to have lost last week as Mr. Santorum swept Tuesday’s three contests.

Mr. Romney’s 38 percent of the vote among CPAC activists is the highest of any candidate since George W. Bush won 42 percent of the vote in 2000, en route to the nomination and the White House. The poll wasn’t held from 2001 through 2004, but has been held every year since then.

In both surveys, beating President Obama in November took a back seat to nominating someone who holds a conservative stance on the issues.

So much for those who thought Romney seemed somewhat madcap in the way he pleaded he was “severely conservative.”

(I have to run because I have lots of severely moderate posts to write this weekend…)

SOME OTHER VIEWS:
Ed Morrissey:

The results for Paul doesn’t come as much of a shock. Paul didn’t speak at CPAC, and his faithful contingent was mostly absent from the conference this year. Still, it’s a bit of a shock to see him fall all the way to the bottom.

Romney brought a lot of supporters with him to CPAC, which is exactly what this straw poll measures. In that sense, it’s a bit surprising to see Rick Santorum come as close as he did in second place. We saw a lot of Santorum posters and signs at CPAC this year, so perhaps the Santorum campaign managed to get that kind of organization in place. As low on resources they have been, though, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to buy a bunch of tickets for Santorum supporters to attend a three-day conference. I’d chalk that up to more organic support than organization.

The big surprise, though, was Gingrich’s poor showing. He also has resource issues now, but CPAC is his crowd. Normally one would expect Gingrich to score better at this particular conference, especially after a very good speech yesterday. A distant third was not the result the Gingrich team would have wanted for the story line out of CPAC. Gingrich does a little better in the Washington Times’ national poll at 20%, but still trails both Romney (27%) and Santorum (25%).

The Daily Kos’ Kaili Joy Gray:

So even though conservatives actually can’t stand Mitt Romney, apparently his latest declaration that he was a “severely conservative” governor was good enough for them. And since one of the biggest themes of this year’s Republican primary season is how Obamacare sucks, obviously choosing the father of Obamacare to run against Obama makes perfect sense.

Please commence mocking now.

Richard Viguerie Says Mitt Romney is a
Severe Conservative Impersonator

Manassas, VA — Richard A. Viguerie, the Chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, issued the following statement regarding Mitt Romney’s speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in which he described himself as “severely conservative”:

“In my 50 years in conservative politics at the national level, I have never heard anyone other than Governor Romney describe himself as ‘severely’ conservative.

“Romney has shown, once again, that he can mouth the words conservatives use, but he has no gut-level emotional connection with the conservative movement and its ideas and policies.

“To paraphrase a story about Mark Twain, one day his wife decided to repeat some of his more colorful four-letter words to embarrass him into cleaning up his language. After absorbing the barrage, the author thought for a moment and said, ‘Honey, you’ve got the words right, but you just don’t have the tune.’

“After 50 years in the conservative movement, I can say with some authority: Mitt, you may have the words of conservatism right, but you just don’t have the tune.”
–30–

NOTE TO EDITORS: Richard A. Viguerie pioneered political direct mail and has been called “one of the creators of the modern conservative movement” (The Nation) and one of the “conservatives of the century”(Washington Times). He is the author of Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause.

And now a PPP national poll find that it’s Senator Rick Santorum’s turn:

Riding a wave of momentum from his trio of victories on Tuesday Rick Santorum has opened up a wide lead in PPP’s newest national poll. He’s at 38% to 23% for Mitt Romney, 17% for Newt Gingrich, and 13% for Ron Paul.

Part of the reason for Santorum’s surge is his own high level of popularity. 64% of voters see him favorably to only 22% with a negative one. But the other, and maybe more important, reason is that Republicans are significantly souring on both Romney and Gingrich. Romney’s favorability is barely above water at 44/43, representing a 23 point net decline from our December national poll when he was +24 (55/31). Gingrich has fallen even further. A 44% plurality of GOP voters now hold a negative opinion of him to only 42% with a positive one. That’s a 34 point drop from 2 months ago when he was at +32 (60/28).

Santorum is now completely dominating with several key segments of the electorate, especially the most right leaning parts of the party. With those describing themselves as ‘very conservative,’ he’s now winning a majority of voters at 53% to 20% for Gingrich and 15% for Romney. Santorum gets a majority with Tea Party voters as well at 51% to 24% for Gingrich and 12% for Romney. And with Evangelicals he falls just short of a majority with 45% to 21% for Gingrich and 18% for Romney.

It used to be that Gingrich was leading with all these groups and Romney was staying competitive enough with them to hold the overall lead. No more- a consensus conservative candidate finally seems to be emerging and it’s Santorum.

The best thing Romney might have going for him right now is Gingrich’s continued presence in the race. If Gingrich dropped out 58% of his supporters say they would move to Santorum, while 22% would go to Romney and 17% to Paul. Santorum gets to 50% in the Newt free field to 28% for Romney and 15% for Paul.

Of course if there’s been one constant theme in this GOP race it’s that once you get to the top you tend to start heading back down.
And what does it say about Romney? Romney should start using this line:

This poll is yet another sign of Romney’s weakness should he get the nomination: there’s a possibility as much as many Republicans detest Barack Obama enough of them could stay home in a very close election to ruin Republican hopes of retaking the White House. On the other hand, if Santorum gets the nomination you can bet your bottom dollar that his candidacy will chase away a large number of independents and moderates (moderates are also not monolithic group and some lean more to the right or left).

What to expect: Romney not to leave anything to chance and continue to plead as he did at CPAC to the point of seeming all too eager (“severely conservative”) that he is and always has been a conservative. He’ll still run mega ads but perhaps his PAC will try to be a bit less brutal, given how the money he and his PAC have been spending and the ferocity of his ads have become big issues. For instance, Romney has been busy in Maine — this time not leaving a caucus state to chance.

Is it possible that American citizens, now under arrest in Cairo, were involved with a plot to partition Egypt into four smaller states? According to columnist Muhammad Dunia of Egypt’s state-run Al-Ahram, maps that were discovered during a raid on the Cairo offices of the U.S.-based International Republican Institute prove that at least some of the foreign NGOs operating in Egypt are actively involved with the scheme, which Dunia calls a long-term ‘American-Zionist’ project.

For Al-Ahram, columnist Muhammad Dunia starts off this way:

Over the past few days, some Western media have begun to revisit the old idea of a plan to partition Egypt based on the American-Zionist project to divide the country into four states.

The first would be in the Sinai, east of the Euphrates River delta, under Jewish influence. The second, with Alexandria as its capital and extending South to Asyut, would be Christian. The third would be in the Nubia region, and the fourth would be a Berber state with Cairo as its capital.

Up to now, some thought the ravings about this suspicious plot were for domestic political consumption only. But during the investigation into illegal funding of non-governmental organizations by Egyptian justice, maps were found inside an American non-governmental organization [the International Republican Institute] laying out plans to partition the country.

The subject wasn’t really a secret, as a scheme to divide Egypt into an Islamic State in the North and a Christian one in the South was leaked on the Internet not long ago. This is particularly dangerous because some international media have exploited the protests at the Maspiro TV station [by Coptic Christians - 27 were killed]. Certain analysts and researchers of Middle East affairs sought to revive the notion by posting partition maps on the Web. This demonstrates both foreign and domestic hands behind what is happening now in Egypt.

READ ON IN ENGLISH OR ARABIC AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.

UPDATE:

A wave of unusually severe cold is gripping Europe. But the weather is not the only thing that is chilling over there. Under the headline “A Chilling Verdict in Spain,” the New York Times reports that “The enemies of Judge Baltasar Garzón have finally gotten their way” as Spain’s Supreme Court has found Judge Garzón guilty of misapplying the country’s wiretap law and suspended him from the courts for 11 years.

The 7-0 ruling flowed out of a 2008 corruption case in which the judge ordered wiretaps of conversations between lawyers and their clients.

According to the Times:

Judge Garzón was not alone in ordering those wiretaps, but he alone was prosecuted, even while the public prosecutor argued that there were no grounds for a criminal proceeding. Convicting a jurist over a court ruling is an appalling attack on judicial independence. Two other cases against him are pending — one involving his inquiry into mass killings during the civil war and the Franco dictatorship, and another concerning allegations of conflict of interest in a tax fraud case.

Judge Garzón is far from perfect, but the decision by the Spanish Supreme Court to remove him from the bench is enormously damaging to the prospects of fair and impartial justice. What investigating magistrate would not now hesitate before pursuing politically sensitive cases? Will the Franco-era crimes that scarred Spain for two generations remain forever uninvestigated?

Apparently, Judge Garzón cannot appeal this decision in the Spanish court system, but he could challenge it in Spain’s Constitutional Court or the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.

Mr. Garzón has already accepted a consulting position at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Perhaps he can continue his pursuit of justice from there.

Read more here.

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Back in March 2009, a Spanish court took the first steps toward opening a criminal investigation into allegations that six former high-level Bush administration officials violated international law by providing the legal framework to justify the torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The case was sent to the prosecutor’s office for review by none other than Judge Baltasar Garzón, Europe’s best-known counter-terrorism magistrate, renowned for his determination and his abilities to bring suspects to justice, no matter how powerful or where they may be—and especially for terrorism and human rights abuses.

His targets have included the al-Qaeda 9/11 and Madrid bombings perpetrators, the infamous Chilean General Pinochet, ETA and related Basque terrorist organizations, Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist organizations operating in the Maghreb region, including Spanish enclaves in Morocco, Argentine ex-naval officer Adolfo Scilingo who was convicted of crimes against humanity and others.

I don’t know where the case against Bush administration officials stands right now and, for the sake of letting bygones be bygones, I will not pursue that at the moment — especially since mine would be the proverbial voice in the wilderness.

However, the present government in Spain, by no means a voice in the wilderness, apparently does believe in letting bygones be bygones or, as they say in Spain “lo pasado, pasado está” as, according to the New York Times:

… Judge Garzón is now himself under legal attack for confronting Spain’s own dark history. He is on trial this week before the Spanish Supreme Court for daring to investigate crimes committed during the Spanish Civil War and the nearly four-decade dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco. The case against him is fueled by domestic political vendettas rather than substantive legal arguments and it could dramatically set back international efforts to hold human-rights violators accountable for their crimes.

The case stems from Judge Garzón’s edict, in October 2008, ordering the exhumation of 19 mass graves and charging Franco and his accomplices posthumously with the murder and disappearance of more than 114,000 people.

The edict, however, was challenged by Spain’s chief prosecutor, Javier Zaragoza, and ruled against by an appellate court — “and the case appeared to be resolved. But several months after the ruling, two tiny far-right groups sued Judge Garzón for ‘prevarication’ — knowingly overstepping his authority — in violating the amnesty law.”

The Times continues:

Criminally charging judges for prevarication is extremely rare in Spain, and a conviction would disbar Judge Garzón for 20 years — effectively ending his career. The Supreme Court’s zeal to try him has little legal basis; rather, it reflects Spanish elites’ widespread unease with applying international legal principles to Spain’s conflicted history and a deep-seated animosity toward Judge Garzón that is as much personal as political.

The prosecution of Judge Garzón is having a “chilling effect” on other international efforts to hold human-rights violators accountable, and a conviction would be interpreted as an even stronger warning sign, the Times says, and “[M]ore disturbingly, due to Judge Garzón’s legal woes, the case brought by Franco’s victims and their families is now languishing. (The only exception is in Argentina, where a prominent human-rights lawyer, using universal jurisdiction, recently filed suit charging Franco with crimes against humanity.)”

The Times concludes:

In his 2005 memoir, Judge Garzón wrote, “A system built on the corpses of those who are still awaiting justice so they can rest in peace is an illegitimate system and one that is condemned to eventually suffer the same fate.”

It would send a tragic and telling message to those victims — and others like them around the world — if the one person convicted for Franco’s crimes is the judge who dared to investigate them.

There are some bygones that just cannot be forgotten or swept under the rug of political expedience. Lo pasado, no siempre está pasado.

Read more of the Times’ article here

Image: Shutterstock.com

Did former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney just put his food in what seems to be his most accustomed spot again when trying to convince conservatives he’s one of them at the big conservative gathering in Washington, D.C.? It certainly seems so. Our political Quote of the Day typifies the raised eyebrows a particular quote of Romney’s has generated among many movement conservatives. It comes from Red State’s Eric Erickson:

Mitt Romney got a warm reception at CPAC, standing ovations . . . the works. He did nothing to calm fears that he is not one of us. In fact, he might have made it worse today.

And — once again — Romney’s self-created eye-brow raiser came when he went off script and ad libbed. And, to be sure, the ability to be able to talk off script without inserting your foot into your mouth or stepping in it is somewhat helpful to a major party’s presidential candidate. Romney — who peppered his remarks with the word conservative two dozen times, by one count — said at one point he was “severely conservative” as governor. Erickson writes:

A severe conservative? It sounds more like a critique of conservatives from the left than that of a conservative himself. In fact, if you want to read only one thing on Mitt Romney’s views of conservatives, I actually think Chris Orr of The New Republic captures the situation best.

Orr writes on Quentin Tarantion’s view of Superman as discussed in the movie Kill Bill 2.

Superman was born Superman. It’s Clark Kent that is the invented alias, the pose, the “costume.” And in the way Superman plays Kent–weak, self-doubting, cowardly–we see his critique of the human race.

It occurred to me that the same is true of Romney’s desperate, if never terribly persuasive, impersonation of a conservative Republican. That persona–angry, simple-minded, xenophobic, jingoistic–is exactly what Romney (who is himself cultured, content, and cosmopolitan) imagines the average GOP voter to be.

I think that is perhaps one of the most accurate reads on Romney today and why so many of us think he is not what he claims to be.

Erickson is correct. “Severely conservative?” Who’d ever use an awkward construction like that (that reminds me: I have two write a batch of severely moderate posts on TMV this weekend.)

I do think Erickson is onto something.

I watching the Romney speech, it almost seems as if between his use of the word “severely” and use of the word “conservative” so many times that he seemed like he was auditioning for a hypnosis act in Las Vegas he was saying this:

Hey, guys, I’m really a conservative! I’m really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really REALLY a conservative. And, also, there’s this: I’m really a conservative!!

And, remember, unlike Erickson and many conservatives I LIKED the older more moderate incarnation of Mitt Romney (I’m gravely moderate).Also: on the Massachusetts ideological scale, Romney as governor was a center-right figure sort of like Chris Christie in New Jersey — not a Scott Walker (Tea Partyish) or like the early Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (20th century style moderate Republican) I’m one of those folks who at one time was a Republican and like moderate Republicans and even thoughtful conservatives who don’t seem to be trying to do Rush Limbaugh imitations. I’m also someone who feels Mitt Romney has a lot of good, solid, qualities and might actually do well in the White House.

But I had the same reaction to his speech as Erickson.

Listening to Romney, I realized this might be a good theme song for his campaign, with a few lyric changes: