Topic category:  Other/General

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney: "America is under attack from almost every direction. We have been attacked by murderous terrorists.... Our employers and jobs are threatened by low-cost, highly skilled labor from abroad. American values are under attack from within."

Right! That’s why Mitt’s running for President of the United States.

Referring to America’s Founders, Mitt noted: "[T]he authors of liberty recognized a divine Creator who bequeathed to us certain inalienable rights. They affirmed freedom of religion, and they proscribed the establishment of any one religion."

Right again! America’s Founders provided in the Constitution for an institutional separation of church and state, by banning any religious test for federal office in the Constitution, but they expected religious values to inform public policy, not to be banned together with God from the public square.

Mitt:

"[T]oday there are some people who are trying to establish one religion: the religion of secularism. They not only reject traditional values, they reject the values of our founders and they cast aside the wisdom of the ages."

"This spreading secular religion — and its substitute values — cannot be allowed to weaken the foundation of the family, or the faith of our fathers who 'more than life, their country loved.”

Absolutely right! And critically important for America to fulfill the purposes set forth in the preamble to its Constitution: “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquity, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”.

Fortunately, Mitt has the personal character, intelligence, competence, executive experience, energy (JFK called it “vigor”) and, yes, money, to stop Hillary Rodham Clinton from returning to the White House as a resident.

”In 2008, Hill versus Mitt should be it,” posted on February 17, 2007, I wrote:

"The top two questions are (1) who will be the Democrat nominee and (2) who will be the Republican nominee.

”The answers (as of now): (1) Hillary and (2) Mitt Romney.”

They still are the answers.

The Clintons plan to circumvent the spirit of the two-term limit.

After the Democrats successfully nominated Franklin Delano Roosevelt for president four times, the United States Constitution was amended to impose a two-term limit.

The Clintons decided that the best way around that constitutional ban was to team up and each serve two terms. As they declared in 2000, they are a two-for-one package. (Monica Lewinsky was Bill’s bad behavior bonus.)

It's the same strategy that the late George Wallace of Alabama successfully used when he was term-limited as governor: run spouse. It worked until Lurleen Wallace died of cancer.

The 2008 Democrat presidential nomination is Hillary's to lose and she's very unlikely to do so.

Barack Hussein Obama, the junior Senator from Illinois, is the current liberal media darling, but the rookie Senator from Illinois is not presidential timber.

John Edwards, the former one-term Senator from North Carolina, has delusions of electability.

The rest of the Democrat hopefuls do not merit individual mention, since their campaigns are quixotic.

Of course, the media benefits financially from even the appearance of a competitive race, so it is loathe to admit that Hillary is the Democrat nominee to be.

In addition, its praise of Senator Obama makes Hillary look moderate, an important general election benefit, so it will continue.

But it will take something like former President Clinton’s former National Security Adviser and current ex-convict Sandy Berger releasing a tape of the Clinton’s telling him to steal embarrassing documents from the National Archives to keep the Democrats from nominating Hillary.

The 2008 presidential election will be fiercely contested, of course, and Mitt is the one to beat Hillary.

Mitt easily bests former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Senator John McCain of Arizona and former Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee, as well as the rest of the Republican presidential hopefuls.

Rudy, with two divorces, three wives and a pro-abortion attitude, simply is not a candidate with whom the traditional American values folks can be comfortable. Yes, he's against terrorism and crime, but who isn't (besides the terrorists and the criminals)?

Senator McCain is too old, too likely to yield to the amnesty-for-illegal aliens impulse and too unprepared to be America’s Chief Executive.

Senator Thompson was too late to the race and too disorganized and is too supportive of the trial lawyers’ lobby and too unprepared.

The arguments against Mitt—he’s a Mormon and he’s flip flopped—are specious.

Those who attack Mitt as a flip-flopper don’t appreciate the difference between flip-floping and finding and accepting the truth. Political opportunism as demonstrated by flip-flopping is deplorable, but conversion is admirable and to encouraged, not condemned.

Take Hillary on giving driver’s licenses to persons illegally in the country: first, she firmly supported it as sensible, then she said not necessarily in all states, then she just supported it in principle (and eventually she probably will oppose it again).

THAT is a flip-flopper who brings to mind those wondrous words of Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts: “I voted for it before I voted against it.”

Take Rudy, baptized a Catholic, choosing to support abortion when it was politically opportune, even though such support violates a fundamental tenet of the Catholic faith.

THAT is a sacrilegious flop-flopper.

Flip-flopping is very problematic, to be sure, but seeing the light and converting is not.

St. Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus was a conversion, not a flip-flop.

Mitt’s conversion on the life issue and support of traditional marriage should be welcomed. The Bible teaches that is a good thing that brings joy to heaven.

Being a faithful Mormon should be no more of a presidential disqualifier than being a faithful Catholic, or a faithful Evangelical Christian, or a faithful Jew.

Will Mitt lose the Republican Party nomination (or the general election) on account of religious bigotry?

NO!

If being a Mormon was fatal to election success (outside Utah), Republican Mitt would not have been Governor of Massachusetts and Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada would not be the Senate Majority Leader.

Mormonism is a religion, and individual Mormons should be evaluated as individuals, like everyone else.

The late Reverend Jerry Falwell, founder of Liberty University (July 28, 2006): "I have no problem voting for a person who is not of my faith as long as he or she stands with me on the moral and social issues. Mitt Romney may be a candidate for president. He's a Mormon. If he's pro-life, pro-family, I don't think he'll have any problem getting the support of evangelical Christians."

When Republicans focus on who can beat Hillary AND keep the Republican Party true to its core values, they will prefer Mitt.

Newsday columnist James P. Pinkerton, in an article entitled "Romney's campaign of transformation," opined that "any baby boomer who has been happily married to the same woman for 37 years deserves a medal for good conduct during the sexual revolution."

He deserves enthusiastic support for President too, because America needs a President whose honor is true.

Mitt is the only top-tier Republican presidential aspirant who has not been divorced. None of others is in a position to dispute Mitt’s moral fitness for America's highest office (even if inclined to do so).

Health-care is Hillary's signature issue, and Mitt showed how to deal with the problem in a constructive way in Massachusetts.

Hillary is a Wellesley valedictorian and a Yale Law School graduate (who failed her first bar exam).

Who better to oppose Hill than Mitt, a Brigham Young valedictorian who earned his B.A. summa cum laude and then graduated from a joint JD/MBA program coordinated between Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School, was named a Baker Scholar and graduated cum laude from the law school and in the top 5 percent of his business school class?

Not Senator McCain, who's more than a decade older than Mitt, who graduated fifth from the bottom of his United States Naval Academy class and whose time has passed. We need a president who will last.

Not Rudy, NARAL's favorite Republican presidential aspirant. That speaks volumes.

Rudy obtained an annulment of his childless first marriage, AFTER FOURTEEN YEARS, CLAIMING THAT HE HAD DISCOVERED HE AND HIS WIFE WERE SECOND COUSINS (and if believe that one, there's this bridge in Brooklyn you might want to buy!). His second marriage ended in divorce, with his second wife receiving custody of their three children. Not long after the divorce, he married one of the women with whom he had become involved during his second marriage.

Mitt is morally, mentally and physically fit to be President of the United States of America.

Why Mitt instead of Hill?

Let’s start with leadership, competence and executive experience and stop at constitutional fidelity.

Remember the two United States Supreme Court Justices appointed by Bill Clinton, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Steven Breyer?

They are judicial activists, a former counsel for the ACLU (Ginsberg) and a Kennedyite (Breyer).

Mitt believes that the proper role of a judge or justice is to interpret the law and the Constitution — not make up the law and deprive we the people of the right to govern ourselves.

Michael J. Gaynor

Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.