IN WHICH I ACTUALLY AGREE WITH PEGGY NOONAN

OK, not with her entire column, but with one paragraph of it, regarding Mitt Romney:

Actually, the vibration he's lately giving off is worse than that. He acts like a guy who can be captured. The world is full of mischief, full of groups, tongs clubs and cabals, and this one says you have to back a certain fiscal plan, that one an environmental approach, and this one says you've got to go to war. And they are almost never thinking of America Overall, they are always thinking of their issue, their thing, and telling themselves -- and you -- that doing it their way will be better for America, overall. And if they think you have a soft, chewy center, every day of your presidency will be a bloody struggle to capture the Mitt.

I don't think it will be a bloody struggle. Just the opposite -- whenever Romney decides to reinvent himself in the pursuit of career advancement, he seems, if anything, overeager to please the people his new masters.

And while Noonan implies that he'll be pulled from all directions, I don't believe that -- I think he'll be pulled from the right only. Oh, sure, there's the grab-the-boodle-and-run right and there's the shut-down-the-government-even-if-the-country-burns right, and sometimes they have a bit of disagreement, like when we've hit the debt ceiling and we're at risk of destroying the full faith and credit of the United States. Yes, in those few instances, different right-wing groups will battle for Romney's soul. But liberals and moderates won't -- hell, we can barely fight effectively for the souls of our own politicians. So he'll be owned, contentedly, by the right.