I’m not a fan of Mitt Romney. I have no confidence that he ever makes any decision for the right reason.

However, this is clearly the right decision:

Donald Trump may have mastered the art of the real estate deal, but when it comes to debates, he’s still an apprentice.

The celebrity businessman is having difficulty securing commitments from Republican presidential candidates for a Dec. 27 debate that he’s planning to moderate in Des Moines.

Mitt Romney on Tuesday became the latest big-name candidate to decline the event, telling Fox News’ Neil Cavuto that he informed Trump earlier today he would be too busy to appear. Romney noted that he already is planning to participate in two previously scheduled debates in Iowa this month. “I understand why Gov. Romney decided not to do it,” Trump told ABC News. He declined to elaborate further.

Appearing in a Trump debate makes a candidate a stage piece for the glorification of Donald Trump’s ego. Anyone who agrees to participate shows they are willing to become a prop for a superficial blowhard.

Absolutely the right decision.

[Posted by Karl]

Slate’s resident JournoLister, Dave Weigel, salutes Ron Paul’s attack on Newt Gingrich but has a concern:

I really wonder what will happen to Paul if another candidate gets torqued off and slaps back at him. I voted for Paul in the 2008 primary, and expect to vote for him or for Gary Johnson this time, but I did/do so with the knowledge that he’s an ally of the John Birch Society who, in the 1980s, lent his name to newsletters with really nasty stuff in them. Both of these stories would dog candidates in competitive races. But Paul has remained in a bubble of his own creation, a candidate with supporters no one thinks they can steal.

Weigel’s comment that he voted for Paul in 2008 reminded me of his statement to Stephen Gutkowski when he was hired by the Washington Post:

I come out of the conservative movement, believe it or not. I edited a conservative newspaper in college (the Northwestern Chronicle); I worked for Reason; I voted for Ron Paul in the 2008 primaries. And frankly, I like how the conservative movement and the GOP work. While the Democratic Party is a collection of interest groups, the GOP is an ideological coalition, composed of people proud to tell you what they believe and why. At the same time, there are elements out there that are clear threats to a sensible GOP and a strong conservative movement — the birther nuts, scam artists who profit off of the-government-is-collapsing paranoia — and I relish in exposing those people.

Indeed, Weigel made his journalistic rep — at both the WaPo and the Soros-funded Washington Independent — obsessing over such nuts and scam artists to the point where a casual reader would think it representative of the right in general.

Yet Weigel voted for Ron Paul and announces he may again in 2012.  Weigel’s reference to the “nasty stuff” in Paul’s old newsletters is interesting because it links to a Reason piece Weigel co-wrote which avoids the details of the racist, anti-gay, conspiratorial screeds that often appeared in them, accepts Paul’s claim he did not know what was in them, and claims they were ghostwritten by Llewellyn Rockwell, Jr.  During the week prior to Weigel’s piece, his collegaue Matt Welch catalogued Paul’s responses to the controversy in the 1990s, which apparently did not contain a denial, either of knowledge or authorship of the offensive material.  Rather, Paul and his people suggested they were being taken out of context.  Even assuming for the sake of argument that Paul did not author the bigoted screeds, Paul was in a position to publicly identify and condemn the author(s) — but apparently never has. (more…)

[Posted by Karl]

As Business Insider reports, President Barack Obama is in Kansas, channeling Teddy Roosevelt with a huge class warfare speech in the same town where T.R. gave his “New Nationalism” speech:

For many years, credit cards and home equity loans papered over the harsh realities of this new economy.  But in 2008, the house of cards collapsed.  We all know the story by now:  Mortgages sold to people who couldn’t afford them, or sometimes even understand them.  Banks and investors allowed to keep packaging the risk and selling it off.  Huge bets – and huge bonuses – made with other people’s money on the line.  Regulators who were supposed to warn us about the dangers of all this, but looked the other way or didn’t have the authority to look at all.

It was wrong.  It combined the breathtaking greed of a few with irresponsibility across the system.  And it plunged our economy and the world into a crisis from which we are still fighting to recover.  It claimed the jobs, homes, and the basic security of millions – innocent, hard-working Americans who had met their responsibilities, but were still left holding the bag.

The crass hypocrisy would be stunning if we had not seen it so many times before.  Team Obama is run and funded by those evil banksters he now condemns, even as they continue through the revolving door between Wall Street and his government.  Could someone read our president Reckless Endangerment? (more…)

[Guest post by Aaron Worthing.  Follow me at Twitter @AaronWorthing.]

Well, it was over a year ago that Patrick asked me one day if I was interested in guest blogging.  As memory serves, he asked me to take over for about two weeks while he was on vacation, although he didn’t disclose that to the rest of the world for fairly obvious reasons.

Well, two weeks began in October of 2010 and went to, well…  today.  But it was never an imposition, because frankly I was having a blast.  I think it is safe to say that most people start blogs like this because they have something to say and want people to hear them, and Patrick loaned me his megaphone.

Of course I wanted it to go on forever, but I knew it could not.  The other metaphor that came to mind is that it was like Patrick had a really cool sports car and he loaned me the keys (and I did my best not to make it crash and burn).  I loved borrowing it, and I will definitely miss it, but I always knew the entire time that this day was coming.  And so it has.

Which doesn’t mean I plan to quit blogging, just that I will be going back to my old and neglected blog (which I will probably rename in order to be more family-friendly).  And I will continue to announce every post by twitter, so if you follow me you will know when I have fresh posts.  And maybe if I am fortunate I will be blogging more at Big Government and/or Big Journalism.  One can hope.

Still it was an honor and a privilege to blog here and to enjoy some of the best commenters on the web.  And most of all I am thankful to Patrick for the time I did have here.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

UPDATE BY PATTERICO: Back in October of last year, I announced that Aaron Worthing would be filling in for the next two weeks. That turned into the rest of the year. And then kept going. Aaron has been helping out here now for over a year.

But everything must come to an end, and the time has come to part ways. I want to thank Aaron for his blogging here over the past thirteen-plus months. His energy and enthusiasm have filled a lot of empty spaces here, and made my life easier. (Perhaps too easy . . . as the ready availability of another blogger made it possible for me to look at my own blog and think to myself: no need to blog today. It’s covered.)

Aaron will continue to blog at his own blog, and his newly minted fans should make that blog a regular visit. I expect I will continue to link his blog, and that he will continue to comment here.

Thanks again to Aaron.

UPDATE x2 BY PATTERICO: Aaron comes clean about his pseudonym. Looks like any thugs who want to come after Aaron for his association with me will have a little extra work to do. And that makes me smile.