For months, pundits twittered over “will he or won’t he” give The Speech. Then when Mitt Romney (R-MA) found himself in second place to Mike Huckabee (R-AR) in IA, pundits worried, “should he or shouldn’t he” give The Speech. He finally gave The Speech. It was … A Yawn.

When John Kennedy spoke about the role his Catholicism would play in his decision-making as president he faced a vocal, well-organized campaign of opposition led by Norman Vincent Peale and other prominent Protestant pastors, notes Newsweek religion editor Kenneth L. Woodward. And when he delivered his speech before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, some of them were sitting right there in the audience glaring at him. Romney, on the other hand, “faces no organized religious opposition he can allude to, no anti-Mormon campaign he can shame - as Kennedy adroitly did - for blatant religious bigotry” (there is evidence that those anti-Mormon push-poll calls in IA and NH Romney condemned as “un-American” were generated by the Romney campaign for some as-yet unknown dark purpose) and gave The Speech before a hand-picked audience at the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station, TX.

Romney spokesman Kevin Madden had billed The Speech, titled "Faith in America," as "an opportunity for Governor Romney to share his views on religious liberty, the grand tradition religious tolerance has played in the progress of our nation, and how the governor's own faith would inform his presidency if he were elected." There was no shortage of kibitzers advising Romney what to say – and what to steer clear of – in The Speech:

† Alan Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College told The Boston Globe that, "Kennedy's speech was actually an antireligion speech; it was a don't pay-any-attention-to-my-Catholicism speech. In the 2007 Republican Party you can't do that, because it's a party that essentially has a religious test for the nomination,” adding "If he says something about Mormonism as his actual religion, it's not going to please evangelicals too much. But if he gives the kind of Jesus-is-my-personal-savior speech, evangelicals won't buy it and he's going to alienate his own Mormon friends." Wolfe advised that Romney explain the differences and similarities between Mormonism and mainline Christianity. "If I were in his shoes, I would take a more honest approach and say this what I am [sic], this is what Mormons believe, this is why we're Christians. He can't deny who he is."

† As The Stiletto has before him, Christopher Hitchens called upon Romney to stop the cynical game he’s been playing with people who want to know what, exactly, he believes so they can make an informed decision about how, exactly, his beliefs will influence his presidency: “You encourage the raising of an awkward question in such a way as to make it seem illegitimate. You then strike a hurt attitude and say that you are being persecuted for your faith. This, in turn, discourages other reporters from raising the question. Yes, that's the three-card monte.” Hitchens wrote that Romney needs to explain to voters the constitutional implications of the Mormon belief that “their leadership is prophetic and inspired and that its rulings take precedence over any human law.”

† Maybe he can’t – and that’s why David Limbaugh argued that Romney should “can the speech,” because “Romney would be better off relying on people's relative ignorance of other religions. … Romney also runs a risk in giving a ‘religious’ speech that skirts all theological questions … If Romney gives a speech that never gets past these generalities, it may prompt critics to probe further and discover there are major differences in Mormonism and mainstream Christianity of which they were unaware.”

Romney must have read all the advice – and decided not to follow any of it. The Speech was platitudinous (“Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.”), self-serving (“some … would prefer it if I would simply distance myself from my religion, say that it is more a tradition than my personal conviction, or disavow one or another of its precepts”) and gave the impression that Romney is hiding something (“My church's beliefs about Christ may not all be the same as those of other faiths.”). Comparing Romney’s and Kennedy’s speeches, John Nichols, a columnist for The Nation writes: “Where Kennedy spoke frankly and in great detail about his Catholicism and about Catholics in politics, Romney eschewed a deep discussion of Mormonism or of his family's historic leadership role in the Church of the Latter Day Saints.”

Romney wants Americans wishing to be true to the faith of their fathers to make the leap of faith (rather, the breach of faith) required to ignore the Pope, various Eastern Orthodox Patriarchs and leaders of every Christian denomination (not just evangelicals) who unanimously denounce Mormonism as heretical, while simultaneously accepting that the apostolic doctrines of their religions needed correction, as Mormons insist – "As the Bible was compiled, organized, translated and transcribed, many errors entered the text."

Kennedy’s religion was regarded as hostile to the Constitution and the principles on which this country was founded, and Romney’s religion is regarded as hostile to the beliefs of devout Christians. Kennedy reassured voters that he would not impose the tenets of his faith on anyone else, but instead of making the case that Christians wouldn’t “jettison their beliefs” by supporting him Romney vowed that he wouldn’t jettison his. Kennedy overcame the opposition to his candidacy. It remains to be seen whether Romney hardened the opposition to his.

On a related topic, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote two hostile anti-Huckabee pieces in as many weeks. In the first, he called upon Huckabee to “go first” and “give the speech that others have urged from Romney. Tell us how your religious beliefs, your rejection of accepted scientific knowledge, will not impinge on your presidency. We know your faith matters to you. We want to know whether it will matter to us.” In the second, he writes: “It is absurd that Romney feels compelled to deliver a speech defending his beliefs and that Huckabee does not have to explain how, in this day and age, he does not believe in evolution.”

Says who? At a recent news conference in Des Moines, IA, he was asked whether creationism should be taught in public schools, and gave an answer that most Americans would find perfectly reasonable: "I believe God created the heavens and the Earth. I wasn't there when he did it, so how he did it, I don't know." Reports The Associated Press: 

[Huckabee] expressed frustration that he is asked about it so often, arguing with the questioner that it ultimately doesn't matter what his personal views are.

"That's an irrelevant question to ask me - I'm happy to answer what I believe, but what I believe is not what's going to be taught in 50 different states. Education is a state function. The more state it is, and the less federal it is, the better off we are."

The former Arkansas governor pointed out he has advocated for broad public school course lists that include the creative arts and math and science. Why, then, he asked, is evolution such a fascination?

It galls Cohen that more Americans find the tenets of Mormonism heretical (or, at the least, hard to swallow) than the tenets of intelligent design. And lest Cohen feel intellectually superior to those who do, Arizona State University physicist and astrobiologist Paul Davies made the case that “science has its own faith-based belief system” in a recent New York Times op-ed. He cites physics, in particular:

When I was a student, the laws of physics were regarded as completely off limits. The job of the scientist, we were told, is to discover the laws and apply them, not inquire into their provenance. The laws were treated as “given” - imprinted on the universe like a maker’s mark at the moment of cosmic birth - and fixed forevermore.

Therefore, to be a scientist, you had to have faith that the universe is governed by dependable, immutable, absolute, universal, mathematical laws of an unspecified origin. You’ve got to believe that these laws won’t fail, that we won’t wake up tomorrow to find heat flowing from cold to hot, or the speed of light changing by the hour.

Over the years I have often asked my physicist colleagues why the laws of physics are what they are. The answers vary from “that’s not a scientific question” to “nobody knows.” The favorite reply is, “There is no reason they are what they are - they just are.” The idea that the laws exist reasonlessly is deeply anti-rational. After all, the very essence of a scientific explanation of some phenomenon is that the world is ordered logically and that there are reasons things are as they are. If one traces these reasons all the way down to the bedrock of reality - the laws of physics - only to find that reason then deserts us, it makes a mockery of science. …

Clearly, then, both religion and science are founded on faith - namely, on belief in the existence of something outside the universe, like an unexplained God or an unexplained set of physical laws, maybe even a huge ensemble of unseen universes, too. For that reason, both monotheistic religion and orthodox science fail to provide a complete account of physical existence.

This is why many Americans – Huckabee included – favor evolution and intelligent design being taught in school as competing theories. They each require a leap of faith to believe, and neither will ever be completely proven to everyone’s satisfaction.

Pin The Tail On The Donkey (Or Elephant)

The Washington Post has developed an interactive online “Choose Your Candidate” quiz, in which you read answers to 25 questions posed to Dems Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson and – without knowing who gave which answer – choose the one that most reflects your views. Ditto the answers given to a set of 25 more or less equivalent questions posed to Republicans Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson. You must make a selection, and then indicate how important the issue is to you before you can move on to the next question. At the end, you find out which candidate is most aligned with your values and views.

Amongst the Dem candidates, there was virtually no discernable difference in any of the answers. The Stiletto disagreed with just about every position taken by every candidate, so it was a matter of choosing the answer to each question she disagreed with the least.

Q: Do you have a plan to make healthcare more accessible to Americans? If so how would you do it?

A: My plan revolves around the concept of choice, and it creates no new bureaucracies and raises no new taxes. [Note: This sounded vaguely Republican, so The Stiletto chose this answer.]

Q: Do you support allowing a portion of the money currently withheld for SS to be put into private accounts?

A: [Note: No candidate was for privatization in any way shape or form, and their answers were identical.]

Q: What would be your top three national security priorities if you were elected?

A: End the war in Iraq and restore American leadership in the world; stand up for the middle class, and end our dependence on foreign oil. [Note: Every answer included “end the Iraq war” in the first or second spot, so it is irrelevant which answer The Stiletto chose. She closed her eyes and jabbed a finger at her flat panel monitor.]

Except for Ron Paul, the answers given by the other Republican candidates were very similar - though there were discernable differences on some issues - so it was a matter of choosing the answer she agreed with the most.

Q: Should government have a role in expanding access to health care? What if anything would you do to restructure the health care system?

A: I believe we can reduce costs and improve the quality of care by increasing competition.

Q:  Do you support allowing a portion of the money currently withheld for SS to be put into private accounts?

A:  I support supplementing the current SS system with personal accounts - but not as a substitute for addressing benefit promises that cannot be kept. [Note: Almost every candidate favored some form of privatization, so The Stiletto closed her eyes again and let her finger do the walking to one of the answers.]

Q: What would be your top three national security priorities if you were elected?

A: We face a new generation of challenges, led by the rise of radical Islam ... This is the defining challenge of our generation. [Note: Regular readers of this blog know this is the only answer The Stiletto would have chosen.]

Based on this quiz, the Dem with whom The Stiletto disagrees least is Dodd; the one with whom she disagrees most is Edwards. Had Kucinich been included in the mix, he would have taken that honor from Edwards.

On the other side of the aisle, the Republican with whom The Stiletto agrees most is “Rudy McRomney” (the scores for Rudy, McCain and Romney were just a point or two apart, but with few exceptions, they agree on the topics the questions covered); the one with whom she agrees least is Paul.

The Other Shoe Drops: Updates To Previous Posts

† A Ho Is Not Always A Hooker: John Oakes, 70, a Santa hired by employment agency Westaff for an Australian department store gig has been fired for saying ho ho ho and singing Christmas songs to children. "They're trying to kill the spirit of Christmas," Oakes tells Reuters. A Westaff spokesman claims that the etired entertainer who had played the part of the Jolly Old Elf for three years was let go because of his attitude.

† U.S. Businesses Gouge Americans, But Give Foreign Nationals A Better Deal (third item): The upside to banks courting Muslim customers in the U.S. and abroad is an end to predatory lending practices that push hard-working Americans into bankruptcy and foreclosure with interest levels that approach usury (remember, that used to be illegal in this country at one time; now, the sky’s the limit) and late fees and other charges that are so steep that one can literally keep making minimum payments on a $10K debt for the rest of their lives and never retire the obligation. Here’s the downside of Sharia-style banking, according to Frank Gaffney Jr. founder and president of the Center for Security Policy:  

[H]aving embraced one aspect of Shariah, it will be vastly more difficult, if not as a practical matter impossible, to deny Islamist activists their demands to accommodate other aspects such as: footbaths in public institutions, prayer rooms and time off for prayers in both public and private sector establishments, latitude for cab drivers and cashiers to decline to do business with certain customers or handle certain products, an Islamist public school in Brooklyn, etc. Like Shariah finance, each of these is but a beachhead in the Islamofascists’ patient, determined and ultimately seditious campaign to subvert and supplant Western free societies.

[T]he Shariah advisors hired by Western capitalists to determine whether investments are “halal” (the Muslim equivalent of kosher) are generally among the foremost adherents to the Islamist creed and associated with organizations that promote it. As one of them put it, Shariah investing is simply “financial jihad” against the unbelievers.

[U]nder the direction of these Shariah advisors, at least 2.5% of the proceeds of the investments they control are donated to Zakat funds. Some of these “charities” have been known to contribute to organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah, the families of suicide bombers in Palestinian communities and Islamist madrassas in places like Pakistan. As investment advisors start promoting Shariah finance vehicles and Islamic indexes like Standard & Poors and Dow Jones, non-Muslim Americans will find themselves tithing to these dubious causes, as well.

† Gul’s Election As Turkey’s President Not A Victory For Democracy (second item): In a Townhall.com column, Middle East historian and analyst Daniel Pipes wonders whether Turkey is still a Western ally, given he “suspects the AKP of being an Islamist organization that seeks to impose Islamic law (the Shari‘a) and perhaps overthrow the secular Atatürkist order to create an Islamic Republic of Turkey. “ He saus that “new realities require a painful reassessment and giving up the warm sentiments built up over a nearly 60-year alliance.” These new realities include:

[A]nti-Americanism has prospered exuberantly in the five years of AKP rule, to the point that Turks regularly poll as the population most hostile to America in the world. … The government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Abdullah Gül indisputably helped foster what Walker calls a "long-term slide into an anti-Americanism that cannot simply be erased with a new U.S. president in Janu­ary 2009."

The catalytic event, now emblematic, was the Turkish parliament's March 1, 2003, vote not to allow American forces to use Turkey as a staging ground to attack Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.

The development of a dramatically new foreign policy doctrine, dubbed "strategic depth," one that calls on Ankara to emphasize relations with neighbors and lessen dependence on Washington, also created tensions when its primary advocate, Ahmet Davutoglu, became Erdogan's chief foreign policy adviser. Walker acknowledges that "This type of policy does not bode well for the historic U.S. alliance."

Pipes blames the Bush administration for “breaking with precedent [and meeting Erdogan] - only a party leader at the time, not a state official – in the White House”  which was interpreted in Turkey U.S. support for Erdogan and the AKP government.

Noting that it took 15 years for Atatürk to move Turkey Westward and just five years for Erdogan to pull it back Eastward, “the transformation has happened so quickly that – formal NATO relations notwithstanding – Turkey can no longer be considered a Western ally. Nor, certainly, is it an enemy. Rather, it falls into a middle status – like Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia – of rival. One day it cooperates, the next it competes. Before long, it may well threaten.”

[A]n “ideologically assertive Turkey” cannot be allowed to join the European Union, Pipes concludes. The Stiletto would like to add that ultimately, it does not serve U.S. interests to continue to aid and abet Turkey’s Armenian Genocide denial. To do so is to make a pact with the devil, lose our souls – and not even getting anything in return.

† Manatees Have A Cow Over Losing Endangered Species Classification (second item; click on the "fearless leader" and "constituents" links): The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has postponed a vote on whether manatees should continue to be classified as an endangered species. State experts argue that manatees are no longer endangered (at imminent risk of extinction) and reclassifying them as threatened (at high risk of extinction) is more appropriate.

† All The News That’s Fart To Print (third item): Did you know that kangaroo farts are environmentally friendly? According to Australian scientists, kangaroos harbor a bacteria in their stomachs that removes enteric methane. They’re trying to find a way to transfer that bacteria to cattle and sheep, which emit 14 percent of all the greenhouse gas pollution in Australia.