Quin, you ignorant slut.

(Sorry, I still love that old Dan Aykroyd/Jane Curtin Saturday Night Live routine of TV pundits with Dan’s classic opening line to his presumed colleague.)

Now, I like my friend Quin Hillyer. Seriously and really, I do. Life is too short for silly feuds. Particularly when one party to the feud has no idea whatsoever what can generate such emotional, visceral…well…I don’t know what to call it. You decide…here is his all-points bulletin about me from last week.

So.

Let’s indulge Quin. Let’s help Jennifer Rubin out, shall we?

She’s for Santorum, my colleague Quin Hillyer says flatly. Not… repeat not… Romney.

“She” would be Ms. Rubin, the Washington Post‘s designated conservative columnist who has been widely and repeatedly reported to be a supporter of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

As seen here in US News and World Report, here in the Daily Caller, here in New York Magazine, here in Forbes Magazine, here in Politico quoting Blogger Dan Riehl and here and here in Red State, the first time by Erick Erickson. Also here, at Let Freedom Ring.

If you don’t have time to read, Ms. Rubin is routinely described in media outlets from right to left variously as a shill for Romney, a fan of Romney, the unofficial spokesperson for Romney, compared to Romney’s in-house PR, a Romney blogger and so on. And on.

None of this is true says my friend the indignant (thin-skinned?) Mr. Hillyer. None of it.

These are nothing but what he likes to call “smear jobs, plural.” (The fact that Erick Erickson of Red State notices Rubin’s enthusiasm for Santorum seems at times strangely paired with Santorum’s jabs at Romney competitors is surely interesting — precisely since some of the examples of Santorum support cited by Quin fit Erickson’s observation to a tee.)

I confess I’m somewhat taken aback at the notion that noting the obvious — a clear attachment to Romney on the part of Rubin — is somehow a “smear.” Be that as it may, in spite of my shamefully displaying the “intellectual integrity about equivalent to Bill Clinton’s” and being a “purveyor of smear jobs utterly divorced from facts, logic, and decency”…I will see what we can do to get this matter clarified. Pronto.

Here’s a fact.

Of note yesterday was this news release from the Santorum campaign announcing the endorsement of Santorum by Hot Air‘s Ed Morrissey. It follows similar endorsements by the great David Limbaugh and the ever-shy Michelle Malkin.

These three Santorum supporters said what they said simply, clearly and well, as is their individual and collective norm. There is no one out there saying…”Ha! David Limbaugh is a shill for Romney.” Nobody is saying: “There goes Morrissey, the Romney cheerleader,” or “Malkin writes like Romney’s in-house PR.” Not a prayer. For that matter, no one anywhere thinks Ann Coulter is for anybody but Romney.

But mysteriously, this is exactly the problem Jennifer Rubin seems to have. For someone who is supposed to be in the business of communicating, she is isn’t getting it done if she is the huge Santorum supporter Quin claims her to be. All manner of people (see those cites above) see her as a solid Romney supporter — except Quin Hillyer.

So let me come to Quin’s aid.

Jennifer Rubin, as Quin furiously insists in his own e-mails to me, is for Santorum. Period. Not Romney.

OK.

This is easily resolvable.

Here’s the headline I will write on a blog post when she expresses exactly what Quin says to me that Rubin believes. I will treat Jennifer Rubin precisely as the Santorum campaign has treated support from David Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin and Ed Morrissey.

“Jennifer Rubin endorses Santorum, Rejects Romney.”

There it is. Crisp, clean, simple. I have removed the question mark. No mistake, No hedging, no nonsense about “writing nice things” and all of that baloney. And I will happily report all the details she provides of her endorsement, as well as linking to it.

Now.

One of two things will happen as a result of this offer.

Rubin will write her own piece and say: “I Endorse Rick Santorum.” In which case the Santorum campaign will write up its own press release as they did for Malkin, Limbaugh, and Morrissey. I will be wrong and everybody out there who believed to the contrary will be proved definitively wrong, exactly as Quin fervently insists us all to be. And I will write a heartfelt apology. (“Dearest Jen, what was I thinking? What was US News, Red State, Forbes and all the rest thinking???? I have the sack cloth and ashes… wearing them now. So uncomfortable at the Giant frozen food section, but people are kind…)

Or…she won’t. She will simply ignore the whole unpleasantness of being called out and won’t deign to acknowledge, much less respond. Or…she will hem, haw, hedge and fudge. She may say she wrote something nice here, or she believes Santorum right over there. Yada yada yada. But at the end of the day she will not endorse Rick Santorum. Period. There will be no press release from the Santorum campaign as there was for Malkin, Limbaugh, and Morrissey. And hell will freeze over before she abandons the Good Ship Mitt.

And all of the latter, if it comes to pass as her answer, will have you, Quin, hemming and hawing and fudging along the lines that an endorsement isn’t necessary yada yada yada. To which the only proper and printable response, now that you personally have put her on the spot, will be….baloney.

So. We shall see, Quin.

In fact, I will make a point of looking for the Santorum press release that announces Jennifer Rubin’s Santorum endorsement just as the Santorum campaign announced those of Malkin, Limbaugh, and Morrissey. (Here, for example, is the way it was done with David Limbaugh.)

As with many of us, I hear all the time from the press offices of this or that candidate, including Santorum’s. I will, if need be, contact the Santorum press office every single day to ask if Jennifer Rubin has endorsed Rick Santorum yet.

I will check the Santorum site daily. Hourly. (Where, as this is written, the Malkin, Limbaugh and Morrissey endorsements are prominently displayed — although, curiously, none from Jennifer Rubin. An oversight, no doubt?) But trusting in your good calm political judgment, Quin, I know I will see that endorsement. I’m sure our readers will be looking, and certainly, good conservatives that they are they will be checking out the Santorum site as well.

Tick…tock. Tick….Tock. She loves Rick…she loves Mitt more. Tick…tock.

Will she or won’t she?

At your own insistence, Quin, nothing less than “I endorse Rick Santorum” will do.

Oh…and by the way. The notion that I have smeared Elliott Abrams by noting what is confirmed by Ed Rollins, Mrs. Reagan, Michael Reagan and Mark Levin — Reaganites all (do I need to actually point this out about Ronald Reagan’s own wife and son?) is interesting indeed. Fact: I read the entire Congressional Record entry in question. So did others. It was decidedly inaccurately presented. Fact: You, my friend Quin, were not there in the day. The people mentioned above were there. I was there. You, respectfully, are clueless on this as well as factless. But if you think Newt Gingrich snookered Nancy Reagan about his loyalty to her husband than…well…God bless ya, buddy.

Conservatism is not a “club” (but nice try). It is a “shared philosophy,” as Reagan said, not a “fraternal order.” Something Ms. Rubin seems to disagree with as exemplified in castigating those terrible conservatives with “a disdain for productive governance,” political speak for the moderate mantra of “can’t we all get along.” As our publisher and friend Al Regnery notes in this month’s magazine, conservatism is essentially four things: liberty, the rule of law, tradition and order, a belief in God or a power greater than ourselves. I try repeatedly to write to those four principles as they are interpreted in everyday life. Period. Erupting in visceral, thin-skinned emotionalism over this or that personality simply because of a political disagreement is not my thing. At the end of the day…politicians (and scribblers) come and go, conservative principle is forever.

And a second “by the way”….did you, Quin, read the piece from the Jerusalem Post by Caroline Glick last December? This one on the Palestinian-Israeli issue and Newt Gingrich? Deep in the article, in which Glick, the deputy managing editor of the paper and a columnist as well, discusses Romney supporters in Washington, she specifically describes Jennifer Rubin as having a “mentor” in… Elliott Abrams. Another fiendish smear, no doubt. All I did was say that Jennifer Rubin should have told her readers that the anonymous “Gingrich critic” she was defending — Elliott Abrams — was in fact the husband of someone — Rachel Abrams — with whom Rubin herself had admitted to (in the Washington Post!) having a relationship of some kind. Hardly offensive, much less a smear. And — yes — a hard fact, pesky as those things are for some.

Now that we know, thanks to Ms. Glick, that Elliott Abrams is a “mentor” to Rubin, meaning at minimum a friend (like his wife?), the fact that Rubin did not mention Abrams’ name — and the allegation that he is her “mentor” — when discussing me is even more startling. If you think Nancy Reagan was snookered by Newt Gingrich, perhaps you might consider whether you are being snookered by Ms. Rubin. But I digress. Just another day at The Washington Post where hidden anti-conservative agendas are a dime a dozen.

Ahhh, the Washington Post…where the liberal chosen “conservative” columnist writes a scorching column titled Egomaniacs R Us — because Donald Trump endorsed, so she thought, Newt Gingrich. Then, red faced when it’s Romney, is all oh-never-mind. 

But at your instigation, Quin, we will pursue the question of Jennifer Rubin and whether she is willing to put herself on the line for the man you insist she supports, Rick Santorum.

Hmmm. Just checked. No Jennifer Rubin endorsement listed by the Santorum people yet.

Tick.

Tock.

Will she? Or won’t she? Rick — or Mitt?