The popular perception among some is that evangelicals and conservatives are on some kind of witchhunt against what they perceive to be the forces of darkness, that it is we who are leading some charge to rid the culture of infidels. Goldberg rightly insists that what we have known all along is the truth, the exact opposite of liberal perceptions: it is the militant secular left which is on the attack, and it will give no quarter in its war to demand its version of the “truth” prevail. A good read well worth your time.

Frankly, it doesn’t take much parsing to see through Newt’s protestations. His taking-to-task of CNN comes off as rehearsed, at least to me; it doesn’t take much of a brain to figure that Newt had to know it was coming at some point, and he used it, predictably, as a camera-ready opportunity to bash the press. Yes, the mainstream press needs some bashing; fine. But his words are a very convenient dodge; there is nothing inappropriate at all about him being asked such questions. Yes, Newt, every person is touched by pain; we get that, but get this, spud: you caused her pain. And the pain of your first wife (who is even a more sympathetic figure; this second wife was, apparently, culpable in the first divorce. Hard to feel terribly sympathetic toward her, come to think of it). You carried on a long-term affair (or two). You are to blame. Are you forgiven by God? Hope so, but that’s not the issue. Are you a conservative? Some of the time, but that’s not the issue. Can you be trusted to lead? Absolutely not; we’ve seen enough of you that we all ought to know that. And your grand telling-off of John King is a pathetic attempt to mitigate your indiscretions, a nice sleight-of-hand trick to take the focus off the very legitimate issue of character.

Now, it’s fair enough to say that it’s hard to trust Flip Flopney because of his, shall we say, “fluid” approach to convictions. Flip isn’t my first choice by any means, and if I do pull the lever for him this fall, it’ll be with a clothespin on my nose, perhaps literally. But we know what your convictions are, Newt, and what they aren’t; we’ve seen enough of you to know that it would be a crying shame if America had to choose between you and President Obama. It would leave this American searching for the best third-party choice he could find.

Thankfully, Newt’s windbagging notwithstanding, there now appears little chance that he will be the nominee.

But in one sense, of course, I was…closer to right. Conceptually, I was right, just had the wrong guy, of course, as Rick Santorum proved to be—out of the absolute blue, of course—the person who grabbed the mantle of “not Romney and not Paul”. Now, can he sustain that momentum? Remains to be seen. Paul is a non-factor long-term, as I’ve long argued. Romney’s front-running status was enhanced last night, but he’s not the inevitable nominee, given the “Romney Ceiling”, given the obvious fact that conservative Republicans en masse don’t trust him, though I think most of them find him an acceptable alternative to Obama.

So all of that said…go, Rick!