The American Spectator

1. Mitt Romney had a bad week. But if I was running for president, would I rather deal with having committed an alleged gaffe in London or being an incumbent with an economic record that includes weak 1.5 percent growth in the second quarter of an election year? I think the question answers itself.

2. Romney delivered a speech today in Jerusalem in which he stood strongly with Israel and praised the Middle East’s lone true democracy. Most Americans will agree with his defense of Israel against her critics. But Romney also came awfully close to committing the United States under a hypothetical Romney administration to a repeat of Iraq in Iran. It’s less clear he can sell a majority of Americans on that.

3. While New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg decided that the Chick-fil-A spat was a government encroachment too far even for him, the woman who would like to succeed him disagreed. City council speaker Christine Quinn would like to keep the fast food restaurant out of the city that never sleeps because of its president’s views on the love that dare not speak its name.

4. Ross Douthat correctly observes that some would like religion to be the love that dare not speak its name, at least in the public square:

If you want to fine Catholic hospitals for following Catholic teaching, or prevent Jewish parents from circumcising their sons, or ban Chick-fil-A in Boston, then don’t tell religious people that you respect our freedoms. Say what you really think: that the exercise of our religion threatens all that’s good and decent, and that you’re going to use the levers of power to bend us to your will.

Preach it, brother.

5. The runoff in the Texas Senate primary will be held Tuesday, with David Dewhurst vs. Ted Cruz standing out as the latest contest between the Republican establishment and the Tea Party. The polls and the tone of Dewhurst’s campaign seem to favor Cruz.

6. Democrat Tammy Baldwin has taken her first significant lead in the Wisconsin Senate race, though things remain competitive. It doesn’t seem to matter much whether Tommy Thompson, Eric Hovde, or Mark Neumann is the nominee, based on the numbers.