In the middle of the Anchoress's extensive highlights of weekend Blogospheric action, she has a particularly good round-up of posts bringing readers up to speed on Mitt Romney. She writes that Romney is "going to have a long row to hoe if he is serious about a bid for the White House", and I agree--he will:

Ann Althouse is giving Andrew Sullivan a dressing down and she’s staying on the subject with a second post. I think this is very interesting and bears watching. Ann Althouse is demonstrating for all the world to see, what a classical liberal looks like. She reads Sullivan’s disappointing thrust on Mitt Romney’s religion, and she notes the unsurprising secondary parries in the press, and she is properly angry that a man’s religion is clearly being used to cast suspicion and doubt upon both his motives and his morals.

Once upon a time, the people who identified themselves as liberals would get upset to see someone attacked for their religion. Now, the people who call themselves liberal (or who staunchly identify themselves as conservatives, although with a clear leftist bent) seem to be embracing a very different mindset. It’s time to either take back the world “liberal” or find a way to distinguis “classical liberals” from the pack. I like Althouse’s righteous anger here - and her warnings about the very dangerous game that is being played with religion by people who should know better - and urge you to read what she is saying, even though I am not yet on board with Mitt Romney.

And btw, Betsy Newmark predicted all this, (and so did I) a long while back. We predicted this behavior from the press, and others. Mitt’s going to have a long row to hoe if he is serious about a bid for the WH. Meanwhile read the link to Betsy, who wrote smart about Mitt’s future trials and tribulations back in 2005.

Instapundit notes - quite rightly - that Mormon Harry Reid does not have to endure all this scrutiny…basically because he is a Democrat and therefore must be above reproach, with no dubious ambitions at his core.