As I said a couple of days ago, a lot of Sarah Palin fans are still laboring under the delusion that she's going to lock the door to her room, crack open a few books, and settle down to a serious course of study, after which she'll be well versed and thoughtful and sober and serious on a wide range of domestic and foreign-policy issues and then, well, White House here she comes. (Latest to succumb to this delusion: Camille Paglia.)
David Frum doesn't fall for this -- he believes, politically, that Palin is toast -- but he harbors a different delusion about another GOP A-lister:
... There are two Romneys: the pragmatic, results-oriented candidate who got himself elected Republican governor of Massachusetts -- and the phoney hyper-ideological ex-candidate who addressed the Republican convention in St. Paul in 2008:
...Last week, the Democrats talked about change. But let me ask you -- what do you think Washington is right now, liberal or conservative? Is a Supreme Court liberal or conservative that awards Guantanamo terrorists with constitution rights? It's liberal! Is a government liberal or conservative that puts the interests of the teachers union ahead of the needs of our children? -- It's liberal!...
Twenty years of Republican presidencies since 1980? Eighteen years of Republican majorities in the Senate? Twelve years of Republican majorities in the House? Seven of the nine Supreme Court appointments? Never happened! ...
The big question for Republicans is: which Romney will show up in 2012? The electable or the unelectable, the serious or the cynical, the commanding or the pandering? ...
Hey, it really could be the moderate, reasonable Mitt! Because notice how incredibly successful that approach has been in GOP presidential politics lately!
Remember how Republicans rallied around Colin Powell during his 1996 presidential run? Remember the well-received presidential candidacies of Christie Whitman and William Weld? Remember how popular Tom Ridge was as the VP candidate in 2000?
Remember how disgusted Republicans were by the religiosity of George W. Bush and the warmongering and McCarthyism of Bush, Cheney, and Rove? Remember how warmly they embraced the socially moderate positions of Rudy Giuliani in the 2008 primaries? Remember how distraught the Republican base was when John McCain attacked Barack Obama's patriotism, and when he brought Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber on board to call Obama a traitor and a commie?
Mitt Romney, I'm sure, remembers the recent GOP past. So, yeah, right -- he'll be a thoughtful moderate in 2012.
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