Bonding time with my inner Hufflepuff

I haven't had time for much other than duty today, but I just made a quick news-cruise and found something off the AP top-ten that bothered me. In case it needs pointing out, I am unabashedly left-leaning. But the article about the history of polygamy in Mitt Romney's family tree almost smacked of character assassination to me. To be fair, the writer pointed out at both beginning and end that Romney has been monogamous, and so were his parents. But if the idea was to generate a human interest piece, the result was well wide of the mark. "Prurient interest piece" would have been closer to the effect.

When the jungle drums first said that Romney was throwing his hat into the proverbial ring, I was intruigued. The conservative governor of the truest of the bluest states has to know a thing or two about compromise. And we desperately need that, no matter which party supplies it. But, like McCain and Guiliani, Romney's since tossed off his sheep-suit to run with the wolf-pack of the Right. So I've written him off. All the same, it's not like you can choose the family you're born into. But in recent years, insinuation almost doubles for incrimination. I dearly want to see Hufflepuff take the (White) House Cup in 2008. But not by stooping to Slytherin tactics.

Don't get me wrong: I've enjoyed as much schadenfreude as the next liberal these past few months. But Will Rogers (I think) said, "The problem with giving someone a lesson in meanness is that they usually learn it." And I fear that the Left has learned that lesson from the neocons and theocons in the past six-plus years. If the Right falls into eclipse and exile, it should be the wages of their hypocrisy and chicanery and jack-booted hubris. Not whispers and wink-wink-nudge-nudge innuendo. Leave that to Fox Noise.