Cloudy with a chance of long knives

Ross Douthat unpacks Mitt Romney's challenge in convincing his party to back him: "No one doubts Romney’s intelligence or competence, but he has managed to run for president for almost five years without taking a single courageous or even remotely interesting position. The thinking person’s case for Romney, murmured by many of his backers, amounts to this: Vote for Mitt, you know he doesn’t believe a word he says. But his phoniness would remain a weakness even if he won the presidency. He’s a born compromiser pretending to be a hard-liner, and the hard-liners know it — which means he would enter the Oval Office with conservative knives already sharpened and ready for his back." One thing is certain: Romney has a long row to hoe.