"The Crisis of Faith" — The New York Times, editorial (www.nytimes.com)

"Still, there was no escaping the reality of the moment. Mr. Romney was not there to defend freedom of religion, or to champion the indisputable notion that belief in God and religious observance are longstanding parts of American life. He was trying to persuade Christian fundamentalists in the Republican Party, who do want to impose their faith on the Oval Office, that he is sufficiently Christian for them to support his bid for the Republican nomination. No matter how dignified he looked, and how many times he quoted the founding fathers, he could not disguise that sad fact."

"... he courted the most religiously intolerant sector of American political life by buying into the myths at the heart of the �cultural war,� so eagerly embraced by the extreme right."

· · · · ·

"Faith vs. the Faithless" — David Brooks, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times (www.nytimes.com)

"It is not always easy to blend an argument for religious liberty with an argument for religious assertiveness, but Romney did it well. Yesterday, I called around to many of America�s serious religious thinkers — including moderates like Richard Bushman of Columbia, and conservatives like Neuhaus and Robert George of Princeton. Everyone I spoke with was enthusiastic about the speech, some of them wildly so."

"Before yesterday, most pundits thought Romney was making a mistake in giving the speech now. But in retrospect, it clearly was not a mistake. Romney didn�t say anything that the Baptist minister Mike Huckabee couldn�t say, and so this one address will not hold off the Huckabee surge in Iowa. But Romney underlined the values he shares with social conservatives, and will have eased their concerns. Among Mormons, the speech may go down as a historic event."

"Romney�s job yesterday was to unite social conservatives behind him. If he succeeded, he did it in two ways. He asked people to rally around the best traditions of America�s civic religion. He also asked people to submerge their religious convictions for the sake of solidarity in a culture war without end."

· · · · ·