Herman Cain on the latest media-generated controversy over Mitt Romney’s religious views (via NRO):

Herman Cain refused to wade into the controversy over whether it is accurate to call Mitt Romney a Christian or not.

“I’m not running for theologian in chief,” he said on CNN’s State of the Union this morning. “I’m a lifelong Christian and what that means is one of my guiding principles for the decisions I make is I start with do the right thing. I’m not getting into that controversy. He’s a Mormon. That much I know. I’m not going to do an analysis of Mormonism vs. Christianity for the sake of answering that.”

Funny, the media seem to be much more concerned with this type of question than they were in the last presidential election cycle when Racist Reverend Wright’s parishioner was running.

Cain answered the question the way it should be answered, which is not to answer it. Theological differences are as old as religion. But they have no place in a political campaign. Values are a separate issue. It matters greatly if a candidate for office accepts or rejects America’s traditional Judeo-Christian values. But people with very different theological views can and do advocate the right values. All the candidates should follow Cain’s lead and refuse to play the media’s game.

On a related note, it was unfortunate to hear some conservatives, most notably William Bennett, attribute what is a legitimate theological debate to bigotry. Perhaps he meant only that it was bigotry in the context of whether to support a political candidate. In any case, theological differences are not bigotry. Bennett should know better than to use that kind of left-wing “argumentation” style.

From the NY Times:

President Obama said on Thursday that he was “comfortable” with a Senate proposal to pay for his jobs legislation with a tax surcharge on income above $1 million.

“I’m fine with the approach they have taken,” Mr. Obama said when asked at a news conference about the tax proposal put forth by Senate Democrats to cover the $445 billion cost of a jobs proposal that the Senate is expected to take up soon. The bill would, among other features, seek to stimulate the economy by lowering payroll taxes on workers and employers.

Mr. Obama, who previously had suggested paying for the jobs bill by limiting the value of deductions taken by households earning more than $250,000 a year, said the alternative offered by Senate Democrats would also meet his objective of “asking millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share.”

This is a real “dog bites man” story. Of course he’s comfortable with it. We can’t imagine any plan to take more of other peoples’ money that would make the president uncomfortable.

And let’s note again that Obama and the Democrats (in and out of the media) still haven’t offered any definition of what constitutes a person’s “fair share” of taxation. The working definition seems to be “more”.

So Bill Clinton is complaining that he’s not getting enough credit for his record as president?

OK, let’s apply the George W. Bush standard (as devised by liberals):

• The NASDAQ peaked in January 2000 at 4572.83
• The NASDAQ closed Friday (11 years later!) at 2,415.40
• If President Bush was responsible for the housing bubble crash, then Clinton was responsible for the NASDAQ tech stock bubble crash, right?

E.J. Dionne’s columns don’t offer much in the way of argument or information, but they are valuable as a window into the mind of the left. For example, his column from the Washington Post website on September 28th, titled “Why conservatives hate Warren Buffett“.

Maybe only a really, really rich guy can credibly make the case for why the wealthy should be asked to pay more in taxes. You can’t accuse a big capitalist of “class warfare.” That’s why the right wing despises Warren Buffett and is trying so hard to shut him up.

But conservatives don’t hate Warren Buffett, they disagree with Warren Buffet on the issue of tax rates. And no one is trying to shut him up. It’s pure psychological projection from Dionne, who obviously hates conservatives. He doesn’t offer any evidence in the whole column, none, to back up his assertion that conservatives hate Buffett or anyone else, or that anyone is trying to shut him up. But this is pretty much an article of faith on the left – they’re motivated in large measure by hate, envy, and anger, so they just assume we on the right are motivated by the same emotions.

What’s really bugging Dionne is the fact successful Americans aren’t giving enough of their earnings to the government, and that anyone dissents from the idea that they should give more to the government.

Wealthy people, by definition, have done better within this system than other people have. They ought to be willing to join Buffett and Edwards in arguing that for this reason alone, it is common sense, not class jealousy, to ask the most fortunate to pay taxes at higher tax rates than other people do. It is for this heresy that Buffett is being harassed.

Wealthy people, by definition, do not put their money under a rock, they use it for all sorts of things – they invest in new or existing businesses, they pay employees, they purchase goods and services from other businesses, they give to charity – but Dionne and his fellow leftists don’t think any of that counts. Their comments suggest that only money given to the government counts as contribution to society.