Mitt Romney's High Dive Into An Empty Pool

Mitt's big religion speech last week was supposed to put an end to the religious issue in his campaign. It was a nice speech and well-delivered.

It was also a catastrophe for Mitt.

Instead of throwing water on the flames of religious debate, it poured gasoline all over them. The first wave of blog posts about the speech all dealt with the mood and the delivery. Now, more serious analyses of the speech and Mormonism in general are coming out and the results are not pretty.

Over at our Patriarch of the Airwaves' blog, the discussions have gone from political smack talk to religious smack talk. That can't be good. My favorite Catholic blogs are starting to list the theological differences between Mormons and Catholics and some even list past slanders of the church by Mormons. Bloggers with a historical bent are posting archaeological questions for Mitt and his coreligionists, like the ones found here.

To me, the speech was a beautifully executed Olympic dive...into a pool with no water. Ouch! It's gonna leave a mark.