I quick Technorati search shows that many blogs, liberal and conservative, are talking about Senator Larry Craig, and the eight men claiming to have had homosexual encounters with him.

I find this interesting… the reactions and the willingness of left-leaning bloggers to accept the accusers claims as genuine without scrutiny or a hint of doubt. It’s interesting because a similar benefit of the doubt did not exist when it came Bill Clinton and the women who accused from rape to fondling to witness intimidation.

When Kathleen Willey was on Hannity & Colmes a few weeks ago, Alan Colmes, bursting with Clinton talking points, attacked Willey’s credibility at her accusations, which have been carefully documented in her new book, Target: Caught in the Crosshairs of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Would Colmes, or any Clinton Defender for that matter, give equal scrutiny to anyone accusing any Republican of something damaging? Of course not. Partisans on both sides of the aisle are more than willing to doubt those who attack their own, and accept wholeheartedly those who attack their political adversaries.

I can’t say any whether or not those men claiming to have had encounters with Larry Craig are telling the truth or not — and neither can those liberals who are anxious to take political advantage of the scandal. But, if they are going to be given the benefit of the doubt by the media, or the Democrats, then Bill Clinton’s accusers deserved (and still deserve) the same.

Word is that Mitt Romney will give his long awaited speech discussing his faith. He will give the speech, titled, “Faith In America,” this Thursday, at The George Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas

According to Romney’s campaign spokesman Kevin Madden, “This speech is an opportunity for Governor Romney to share his views on religious liberty, the grand tradition religious tolerance has played in the progress of our nation and how the governor’s own faith would inform his Presidency if he were elected.”

Romney reportedly made the decision to deliver the speech last week.

Obviously, there’s been a lot of speculation about if and when Mitt would give a speech addressing his Mormon faith. I’d always felt that that he should have done it early on in the campaign, and gotten it over with before it became a bigger liability for him. So why is he making the speech this week, when he could have done it earlier? The answer is iowa.

Romney’s lead in the polls in Iowa has taken a hit, and some polls even have Mike Huckabee taking the lead. Obviously, now is the time to bring this issue front and center. The question then will be “Will it work or was it too late?”

I still believe it would have been better for Romney to address his faith earlier in the campaign, but we’ll have to wait and see how his speech will affect the evangelical Christian voters.

The other night I caught a segment on FOX News where there was discussion about the hostage situation that occurred at the Hillary Clinton headquarters in Rochester, NH. It seems like there’s a lot of talk about “how Hillary handled the situation.” I’m sure I don’t need to remind you about the ridiculous puff piece written by Glen Johnson for the AP, but clearly much of the discussion reflects sentiments implied by that piece.

Hillary and her campaign clearly saw the political opportunities from the hostage situation at her campaign HQ, but, we shouldn’t forget that there was absolutely nothing Hillary had to handle. She wasn’t at the headquarters when it happened. She was never in danger at any point. She also had no authority over local law enforcement, thus she was never in a position to make any decisions that affected the outcome of the hostage situation. It was never a test of her leadership abilities, and not once was she in a position to demonstrate her capacities to handle a crisis situation. Instead, it showed her ability to see the political impact of a situation and how to exploit it.

That being said, one can’t ignore that there is certainly going to be a short-term political advantage for Hillary as a result. Some theorized that, with regards to her recent slide in the polls after her terrible performance at the Philly debate, this event combined the subsequent “presidential-looking Hillary” media coverage, should “stop the bleeding.” I wouldn’t doubt that it may do that, but there’s no reason why it should.

It appears that in recent months Barack Obama’s campaign was coordinating with his political action committee on whom to make political contributions to… and it just so happens these donations were made to politicians in key primary states during a time the campaign was securing endorsements.

Ian Schwartz brought my attention to this story, which shows that dead people are still making political contributions… and a majority of those contributions from deceased is going toward Democrats and their committees.

CNN continues to get more flak for their screening practices… and even more obviously Democrats/liberal questioners have been discovered…

Also interesting is that the Republican CNN/YouTube debate was the most-watched debate yet.

If Jack Murtha is finally willing to admit it…

House Republican Whip Roy Blunt made the following statement today in response to Murtha’s comments:

With one of the Democrats’ leading war critics now saying the surge in Iraq is working, it’s difficult to understand why the majority continues to push an irresponsible withdrawal plan that jeopardizes critical support funding for our troops. It can’t be the facts on the ground that are influencing their decision-making: After all, our servicemen and women have made tremendous progress the past six months, with fewer attacks on our troops, greater security in historically insecure areas, and terrorist insurgents on the run.

UPDATE: More from Suitably Flip

A Gallup poll released today shows that more Republicans rate their mental health as excellent than Democrats.

Republicans are significantly more likely than Democrats or independents to rate their mental health as excellent, according to data from the last four November Gallup Health and Healthcare polls. Fifty-eight percent of Republicans report having excellent mental health, compared to 43% of independents and 38% of Democrats. This relationship between party identification and reports of excellent mental health persists even within categories of income, age, gender, church attendance, and education.

Read the whole thing, it is quite interesting. Especially this part:

One could be quick to assume that these differences are based on the underlying demographic and socioeconomic patterns related to party identification in America today. A recent Gallup report (see “Strong Relationship Between Income and Mental Health” in Related Items) reviewed these mental health data more generally, and found that men, those with higher incomes, those with higher education levels, and whites are more likely than others to report excellent mental health. Some of these patterns describe characteristics of Republicans, of course.

But an analysis of the relationship between party identification and self-reported excellent mental health within various categories of age, gender, church attendance, income, education, and other variables shows that the basic pattern persists regardless of these characteristics. In other words, party identification appears to have an independent effect on mental health even when each of these is controlled for.

The reason for this relationship is not known.

The reason the relationship exists between being a Republican and more positive mental health is unknown, and one cannot say whether something about being a Republican causes a person to be more mentally healthy, or whether something about being mentally healthy causes a person to choose to become a Republican (or whether some third variable is responsible for causing both to be parallel).

This report seems to confirm my longheld belief that in order to vote Democrat, you have to be somewhat crazy.

Watching? Feel free to discuss.

UPDATE: Well, that was a rather disappointing debate. Not because of the answers (though some were better than others) but many of the questions selected were awful. So many were loaded questions or presumptuous. I got the impression that there were some that weren’t even submitted by Republican voters (the target audience) and that was annoying. Still, the Republican candidates certainly demonstrated once again that they can handle a debate in unfriendly territory, with some lousy questions, and a crappy moderator. Meanwhile, Democrats are still too chicken to participate in a debate on FOX News.

I didn’t see the Democrats’ CNN/YouTube debate, so I can’t compare the two. So, if anyone here did watch both, I’d like to hear about the differences.

The most ridiculous moment of the debate was when the openly gay retired Army Colonel asked his question about the Republicans’ positions on gays in the military and lo and behold, after the candidate gave their answers, we learned the guy was actually in the audience, were he was given the chance to say whether or not he was satisfied with the answers. Of course he wasn’t. And we know why…

Apparently he is connected to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

It turns out that Keith Kerr, retired Colonel., U.S. Army; retired Brigadier General, California National Reserve, who submitted a YouTube question about gays in the military, is actually a member of Hillary Clinton’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transexual Americans For Hillary Steering Committee. He’s also part of a film production crew trying overturn the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

I’m not sure what the rules of the debate were, and if only Republican voters were supposed to submit questions, but having someone involved in the Hillary campaign not only ask a question, but be granted a unique chance to explain whether or not he was satisfied with the responses, was either the result of severe sloppiness or bias on CNN’s part.

The exchange on waterboarding and torture was interesting. McCain’s personal experience with torture made it impossible for anyone to assertively disagree with him on the issue of waterboarding. Romney could have handled it better though. While his point about not laying out what forms of interrogation will and will not be used on captured terrorists, what was really missing was the point that waterboarding is not torture.

The Cheney cartoon? Give me a break.

I can’t really say who I felt won or lost, since I did miss some parts of the debate. Each had their good moments and bad moments. I don’t know how many undecided Republicans made their decisions tonight, but I will close by saying that I was never really impressed by the whole YouTube debate concept, and I’m still unimpressed.

So, now Bill Clinton is jumping on the “I always opposed the war in Iraq” train.

Does Bill Clinton forget signing the Iraq Liberation Act? Or the fact that his administration was advocating the use of military force against Iraq for years — as were many leaders in the Democratic Party. The problem for Democrats today is that Iraq, for them, is not a national security issue, but a political issue. As Democrats become increasingly more beholden to the interests of the extremist anti-war base of their party, they all have to rewrite their own history and present themselves as longtime opponents of the war. John Kerry did the same thing in 2004 during his presidential campaign… as did John Edwards. Bill Clinton clearly has to follow suit for the sake of his political partner Hillary’s campaign.

In the beginning there was plenty of support for the war in Iraq. Bush’s approval ratings even went up after we first went in. But, Democrats will take any position depending on how the political winds are blowing. They have no backbones and no conviction.