Sally Quinn

After blaming the 2000 election for the breakup of the Gore marriage on Tuesday’s CBS Evening News, Sally Quinn of The Washington Post returned to CBS Wednesday morning for an interview with The Early Show, where she repeated the blame-Bush line, in a milder way: "You know one of the hard things is when you lose, this was their home. You can’t live here anymore." But mostly, Quinn suggested that if the Gores couldn’t make it, then maybe no one could:

And the interesting thing is that usually when something like this happens you get a sense of glee, people sort of saying, "I told you so, or I knew it," or whatever. I have only encountered sadness, and as you can imagine I’ve been on the phone with friends ever since I heard it yesterday and everyone feels as though somehow their own marriages have split up. You know watching the Gores is sort of looking at the possibilities of what a good marriage could be and when it doesn’t work for them you sort of think "oh my God, maybe it’s not possible."

People at CBS aren’t willing to consider that maybe someone’s selfishness is ruining the marriage. Quinn laid it on thick about how wonderful the Gores were in raising their children, and how talented they were:

Is there anything a journalist cannot or will not twist to bring the topic back to how life would be so much better if only not for that awful George W. Bush? On Tuesday's CBS Evening News, with the help of the Washington Post's Sally Quinn, Sharyl Attkisson managed to blame news, that Al and Tipper Gore are separating, on how they never got over being denied the presidency despite winning the popular vote in 2000. If only Bush hadn't taken it from them.

Attkisson recalled “it's been ten years since that oddly public passionate kiss at the Democratic convention. That was followed by Gore winning the popular vote for President but losing the electoral vote. Family friend Sally Quinn says that may have done the marriage irreparable harm.”

Viewers then head from Quinn, who's married former Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee and is now titular overseer of the paper's “On Faith” blog: “He obviously suffered a lot and still is suffering. He'll never get over that and neither will she.” (jpg of screen shot of Quinn)

At the On Faith page of The Washington Post and Newsweek, Sally Quinn interviewed liberal Sojourners magazine publisher Jim Wallis about his squabble with Glenn Beck about the meaning of “social justice” and Christianity.

Quinn probably could have lined up Beck – after all, he sat down for an online interview with Katie Couric. Quinn wanted to know if Beck would keep attacking if Wallis and his liberal friends would benefit. Wallis insisted he told his staff no personal attacks on Beck: “We have to stay on the high ground here.” Quinn asked, “Is it hard?”Wallis replied, “Sometimes, when they’re just misrepresenting. They said, ‘Does the Gospel call us to redistribution? ‘ I said ‘Yes.’ ‘So Jim Wallis wants the government to come in…’ I didn’t say anything like that. (Laughing). That’s dishonest.”

Our secular liberal media elites are never more poisonously insincere than when they recommend that conservatives should move closer to liberals, for their own good. Witnessing the relentless media attacks on the Catholic Church, no member of the flock should assume that the agitators at Newsweek or the New York Times know best how to steer the faithful – or even believe they want to help the faithful. Much like Ted Turner, who called Catholics “losers,” his media colleagues see Catholics – and particularly Pope Benedict XVI – as loathsome political obstacles.

One can conclude from all the coverage of sexual-abuse charges that those charges aren’t really the primary point for the “truth” seekers. These leftist media elites have hijacked those heinous actions for a much broader goal. Theirs is a very political crusade, with the goal of sacking Pope Benedict and “reforming” the ancient church in their hipster image, one that celebrates gay bishop Eugene Robinson’s Episcopalian gospel of “tolerance” and “inclusion” and “pluralism.” That kind of church would pose zero threat to the global goals of the left. In that kind of church, there is no stained-glass ceiling to untrammeled abortion and unlimited “marriage” of everyone to everyone.

In May of 2008, Sally Quinn of the Washington Post’s On Faith site went on PBS’s Charlie Rose show and decried Barack Obama’s decision to distance himself from Rev. Jeremiah Wright, since Wright was an incredible man being ruined by "latent racism." She even blundered into expressing that this shaming of Wright "has been absolutely devastating to me -- to him, sorry."

Apparently, Rev. Wright is a far holier man than the pope. Quinn was raining fire on a Vatican City "under siege" on MSNBC Monday afternoon, trashing Pope Benedict as Richard Nixon:

This is the Vatican’s Watergate. The Pope is Nixon. I mean, if you look at the signs, and the way they’re behaving, it’s exactly the same way. They’ve done something terrible. They’ve denied it. They’ve accused their accusers. The Pope this weekend talked about this being "gossip" and they weren’t going to be intimidated by it, but the fact is it’s been a coverup, and a crime, and a coverup.

Quinn insisted "The pope is going to have to resign," which brought more Watergate comparisons:

The special election in Massachusetts is sure to be a close one. Should Republican Scott Brown prevail, however, the liberal media will have a host of ways to explain away the election as an anomaly and by no means a referendum on either the president or his legislative accomplishments (or lack thereof).

Perhaps one of the most absurd instances of this thinking came on last night's "O'Reilly Factor" where Washington Post veteran writer Sally Quinn actually attributed Brown's meteoric rise to, wait for it, a semi-nude photo shoot he did for Cosmopolitan magazine--a full 28 years ago (video and partial transcript below the fold - h/t Jim Hoft).

Quinn postulated that the shoot gave the "hunk" Brown a boost in name recognition before the election. O'Reilly, for his part, called Quinn out on how outlandish she sounded.

In her Washington Post column today, Sally Quinn frets that White House security breaches divert attention from Barack Obama's accomplishments.  In "Time for accountability at the White House," she writes:

Obama has had some real successes this fall. He did a masterful job of bringing together incredibly disparate positions to craft a strategy for Afghanistan. He put himself on the line and will probably come up with a reasonable health-care plan. He left Copenhagen with at least promises of cooperation from other world powers regarding climate change. But he is not getting credit that he deserves because he is being ill served by those around him who will not step up as needed and take the fall for him.

Real successes, heh?  Obama's dithering on Afghanistan justifiably earned him criticism both here and abroad, where England's defense minister and others voiced their concerns.  It's impossible to know if Obama's health-care plan, cobbled in backroom deals, is reasonable because so many specifics are still obscure.  One thing we do know is negotiations weren't, as promised by Obama, aired on C-SPAN.  Moreover, Obama failed to go over it line by line with members of Congress, another promise made and broken.  Only in the mainstream media could Obama getting "at least promises of cooperation from other world powers regarding climate change" count as a success.

Last year, Sally Quinn of the Washington Post found it "devastating" on PBS that Barack Obama would abandon his sulfurous religious mentor Jeremiah Wright, a man "lionized by some of the great white theologians in this country." Quinn questioned how Wright’s allegedly racist opponents can call themselves Christians: They "go to their white churches, and you wonder how they can call themselves Christians and still look at other people as though they are inferior."

In her role as the co-creator of the Post’s "On Faith" blog, Quinn is at it again, suggesting on Tuesday Sarah Palin was a rotten Christian in her book Going Rogue. "Palin's book is a screed against everyone who ever done her wrong." She jokes nastily that maybe it was God’s plan for Palin to "go rogue" from the tenets of Christianity:

Appearing on MSNBC Thursday afternoon, Washington Post writer and founder of the paper’s On Faith blog, Sally Quinn, exclaimed of Sarah Palin: "Well, clearly, she has not put her family first...And these children have, it seems publicly, to have been exploited by her in a, I think, really unfortunate way."

Even anchor David Shuster, who on Wednesday declared that Palin had "no future" politically, questioned Quinn’s accusation: "Sally, the use of the word ‘exploited’ is pretty strong. Give us some specific examples that you think qualifies for that?" Quinn was happy to elaborate: "Well, you know, she brings them all to the convention, including Trig, the baby. She brings the pregnant daughter with the boyfriend who clearly didn't want to be there. She then travels around with the children, using them as sort of photo ops...she brings the children up when she needs them to shore up her own image."

Quinn even seemed to blame Palin for defending her family against David Letterman’s attacks: "It just seemed to me that the David Letterman situation where she whipped that up into a huge scene, bringing in her other daughter Willow and making a big – a big to-do about it when she could have just let it go."

During the 2008 campaign, Quinn appeared on the September 3 CBS Early Show to denounce Palin for deciding to run for vice president, claiming that the governor "has got to rethink her priorities."

The Washington Post found a very liberal way to celebrate Mother's Day. In the Outlook section, Sally Quinn wrote an entire essay offering her deep appreciation for the First Lady's arms. Will the flattery never cease?

Michelle Obama's arms, we determined, were transformational. Her arms are representative of a new kind of woman: young, strong, vigorous, intelligent, accomplished, sexual, powerful, embracing and, most of all, loving.

Today is Mother's Day. Today we should celebrate Michelle Obama's arms as the arms of a mother.

....She has come under attack for exposing her arms. They are toned and muscular, burnished and beautiful. That has to be threatening to some. For some men, often, a strong woman makes them feel diminished. For some feminists, the idea of an educated woman not taking on a full-time serious job is a frightening throwback.

Happy Easter, Catholics. Your pope is not much different from a secular politician exercising damage control. Fortunately, President Obama is helping him "repent faster" when he steps into controversy.

That's the message being sent by the "On Faith" editorial staff with their excerpts "From the Panel" published in the April 11 print edition of the Washington Post. A partnership with Newsweek, "On Faith" is edited by the magazine's Jon Meacham and the Post's Sally Quinn.

"What's Behind Pope's Apologies?" asks the headline. An editorial note gives readers the question asked "On Faith" panelists:

On Tuesday's "Nightline," ABC gushed over Michelle Obama with the enthusiasm and objectivity usually reserved for "Access Hollywood" reporters. Correspondent Yunji de Nies lauded the "rock star" first lady for her fashion sense and for speaking openly about balancing work and family. "Nightline" co-anchor Cynthia McFadden asserted that "with her muscular arms and outfits, she's become, well, a model first lady."

De Nies talked with liberal Washington Post journalist Sally Quinn, who has written for years about D.C. style. Asked about a recent Michelle Obama spread in Vogue magazine, Quinn enthused, "Well, for one thing, I think she's a sexual person. The pictures are attractive. They're womanly. They're sexy, but not in an overt way." She then went on to assert that Washington has often tried to force women to downplay their sexuality. This prompted de Nies to breathlessly wonder, "Is Washington and the world ready for such a modern first lady?"

During the 3:00PM EST hour of MSNBC news coverage, anchor Norah O’Donnell discovered the source of sexism in the Middle East was not Islamic fundamentalism, but rather, capitalism: "And to another big story, is oil behind sexism in the Middle East? It's a provocative new theory out there today, suggesting the real culprit of the lower status of women in the Middle East is because of the region's oil wealth."

O’Donnell then turned to Sally Quinn of the Washington, who wrote about the theory on the newspaper’s On Faith blog: "This is a hot topic, Sally. Do you believe that oil is behind sexism in the Middle East?" Quinn replied: "Well, I do think that it has a lot to do with it...when you have an oil-rich country, there's much less manufacturing, so that there are fewer jobs for women. But also because the country is so rich that women don't need to work and therefore they're comfortable and they stay home."

Later, O’Donnell concluded: "But it's a very interesting question, it's not necessarily Islam, it may be more, and you would know this better than I, as -- because of what you're doing -- it may more be the wealth of that country." Quinn replied: "Well, it is the wealth. The -- part of it, too, has to do with culture. I mean, that they come from a culture where women don't work. And so, because the oil-rich countries, all of the jobs that are involved around oil are much more male-oriented jobs."

On Thursday’s Newsroom program, CNN correspondent Jim Acosta indirectly compared the Obama family to the pregnant Virgin Mary and St. Joseph looking for a place to stay in Bethlehem during a report about the unavailability of the Blair House: “...[I]t’s still not clear why there wasn’t enough room at the inn for the Obamas. The 70,000 square foot complex is actually bigger than the White House. There are 119 rooms, 14 guest bedrooms, 35 bathrooms, four dining rooms, dry cleaning facilities, an exercise room, and a fully-equipped hair salon.” Acosta also played clips from two sympathetic liberals who bewailed the situation.

Acosta began his report by presenting the lack of accommodations at the presidential guest house as a “Washington mystery.” He then played his first clip from Allan Lichtman, a professor at American University who unsuccessfully ran in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Maryland in 2006. The on-screen graphic described Lichtman, who ran on anti-war, pro-abortion platform in the primary, as merely a “presidential historian.”

"Good Morning America" hosts and reporters on Wednesday bewilderingly touted a total non-scandal, the "brewing brouhaha" over the new set of presidential dinnerware that President Bush and the first lady have ordered. Despite the fact that a private organization is paying the $485,000 bill, a salient point not revealed until late in the story, co-host Robin Roberts fretted, "So, why wait to give such an expensive gift right before they leave?" (If the plates are not taxpayer funded, what's the basis for the story?)

Veteran ABC reporter Ann Compton worried, "So, why is Laura Bush introducing new Bush china two weeks before they move out?" Compton even featured the Washington Post's Sally Quinn, not identified as a liberal in the report, to bash former President Ronald Reagan's china incident. Compton explained, "Washington veteran Sally Quinn recalls the furor when President Reagan was slashing the federal budget and his wife, Nancy, ordered $200,000 of scarlet china with the presidential seal in gold."

CNN correspondent Joe Johns’ report on Monday’s American Morning heaped praise upon Sidwell Friends School, the new school for the Obama daughters. Johns read from one of the school’s own mission statements about its “Quaker values” and later described how President-Elect Obama apparently “often seems in tune with Quaker principles -- seeking consensus with others; talking rather than fighting with opponents; and, at least in the case of Iraq, if not Afghanistan, opposing war even when the majority supports it.” The correspondent also featured three clips from The Washington Post’s Sally Quinn, who gushed over school: “Sidwell is a happy school....it can be a really magical place.”

Johns began introducing Sidwell Friends as “among the elite private schools in Washington,” and set the laudatory tone of the report by playing the first clip from Quinn, who described the school as “very much about peace and community” and that it’s “very progressive.” He continued by highlighting how “the Obamas selected the school that was the best fit for what their daughters need right now.”

Praise the Lord and pass the video clips!

What do Bill Maher slamming Pope Benedict XVI as the criminal head of a pedophilia ring, Washington Post's Sally Quinn defending anti-American Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and Ted Turner founder prophesying environmental apocalypse have in common?

They are just three of the most outrageous quotes from the mainstream media in 2008 and were featured on the December 23 "O'Reilly Factor" in a segment with MRC's Director of Media Analysis Tim Graham.

You can view the segment in the embedded video at right.

In his December 19 blog post, "You too can be a spiritual dilettante," Get Religion contributor Douglas LeBlanc shared his bemusement with self-admitted atheist Sally Quinn's helpful suggestions to Newsweek/Washington Post's "On Faith" readers about interfaith dialogue. LeBlanc noted that Quinn gave her readers this assignment:

Try a new faith (or non-faith) for one day. That exploration can include attending a different place of worship or an event hosted by another faith tradition, discussing faith with someone whose views differ from your own, or inviting someone of a different faith to experience yours.

Then come back to the site and tell us about your experience. What did you learn? What surprised you? What bothered you? What would you like to know more about? How did you experience with another faith impact your understanding of or appreciation for that faith or for your own? Take a picture and share that too.

That's when LeBlanc turned on the snark, lambasting Quinn as out of touch with religious Americans who most certainly are politely engaged in theological conversations with friends, family and neighbors on a regular basis (emphasis mine):

At 3:50pm on MSNBC News Live, anchor Contessa Brewer interviewed writer for the Washington Post's 'On Faith' blog, Sally Quinn, on the role of social issues in the presidential campaign and cited recent poll numbers on abortion: " On abortion, the latest New York Times/CBS poll shows 37% of voters say abortions should be generally available, 42% want the procedure available but with stricter limits than we have now. 19% say they should not be permitted at all...What do you make of those numbers?" Quinn responded: "Well, I think the majority of people in this country believe that abortion should be legal at some point. And 90% of people, for instance, who have Down's Syndrome babies choose to terminate their pregnancies. So I think that people generally feel that a woman should have a choice." Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin gave birth to a baby with Down's Syndrome five months ago.

Quinn went on to suggest Palin and John McCain were hypocritical for being opposed to abortion and in favor of the death penalty and even claimed that Palin would be in favor of executing abortion doctors and women who have abortions: "Both McCain and Palin are in favor of the death penalty. In fact, Sarah Palin has said, 'anybody who murders a child I will sign the death penalty for that person.' So how can you then say life begins at conception, abortion is murder, 'I'm in favor of the death penalty,' and not be in favor of the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions or mothers who allow abortions to be performed?" However, Quinn did not see any hypocrisy in Joe Biden’s contradiction of being personally opposed to abortion, but not publicly: "Joe -- Joe Biden is Catholic, believes that life begins at conception, but does not believe that imposing his religious views on others."

Five days after Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was picked as the Republican vice presidential nominee, NBC's David Gregory falsely disputed the idea that the media had crossed a line by suggesting Palin's family life conflicted with her candidacy. Referring to an earlier interview, Gregory argued on Today: "Rudy Giuliani said questions have been asked about whether she can balance this with her kids. That question has not been brought up by the media."

Gregory was wrong — that precise question was posed repeatedly on ABC, CBS and NBC as the networks invaded every nook and cranny of Palin's family life. From August 29 through September 4, the Big Three network morning and evening shows ran a total of 59 stories mentioning Palin's family, or about eight per day. Nearly two-thirds of those (37) brought up the pregnancy of Palin's teenaged daughter; another ten questioned whether she could balance her family obligations with a campaign — the exact suggestion Gregory claimed was never "brought up by the media."

What a difference a few hours make. It is almost like Sally Quinn, the Washington Post faith columnist, was blinded by the  light of truth on the road to Damascus. On CNN's "American Morning" on Friday, Quinn repeated her doubts as to whether Sarah Palin could "put country first" due to her family reponsibilities as a mother:

Everyone woman I know practically is a working mother. We have conflicts and guilts that men simply don't have. And, basically the burden of raising children falls on the mother, no matter what kind of a job she has. So, I think that to, you know, we're so far beyond the feminist argument here. This is not about feminism, it's not about sexism, it's simply about can you do the job?

Appearing on Friday's "American Morning," Washington Post faith columnist Sally Quinn again attacked the choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as Senator John McCain's vice presidential pick. During her interview with co-host Kiran Chetry, Quinn suggested Palin would not be able to balance her five children along with the duties of the vice presidency and potentially the presidency.

Chetry first asked Quinn if the questions she has raised about Palin, including her ability to be both a mother and a leader, would be questions that she would ask of a man. After firmly answering "yes," Quinn claimed that the "burden of raising children falls on the mother" and said that her questions about Palin are not sexist, they are about whether or not Palin can "do the job."

After bringing up the "country first" theme of the Republican National Convention, Quinn took a jab at McCain's age as well as Palin's ability to put country first as commander in chief: "And I think if you're talking about the commander in chief, and that is what she is likely to be given his age and his health, will she put her country first, or will she put her family first?"

Apparently fed up of hearing what they believe was a phony line being delivered by GOP spokesmen – that women across the country were offended by the media questioning Sarah Palin's fitness as a mother – Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann defied critics to find examples of any news outlets making that charge.

Matthews and Olbermann, spurred on by criticism from Hawaii's Republican governor Linda Lingle at around 8:09pm [EDT] during MSNBC's live coverage of Thursday night's (September 4) Republican convention, threw down the following gauntlet:

On Wednesday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez had a roundtable discussion on Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s ability to serve in office and be a mother: "The question, can a mother of five, including an infant with Downs Syndrome, be an effective vice president?" Washington Post reporter Sally Quinn was part of the panel and responded:

...it's interesting that here I am, supposedly part of you know, the -- what one would call the liberal elite media. That's what we've been all -- the critics of Sarah Palin have been called. And yet, taking the position that a woman with five children, including one with special needs, and a daughter who is a 17-year-old child who is pregnant and about to have a baby, probably has got to rethink her priorities. It seems to me that there is a tipping point, and I think that she's crossed the tipping point. I believe that it's going to be very difficult for her...I think this is -- this is too much.

Quinn made similar comments about Palin in a WashingtonPost.com "On Faith" blog posting last Friday, the day Palin was announced as McCain's VP. On March 26, Quinn told the Early Show's Harry Smith that the media should have gone after Chelsea Clinton more aggressively, Smith admitted: "We're not exactly watchdogs here" Well, CBS certainly seems to be a watchdog when it comes to Bristol Palin.

The other members of the panel were Republican congresswoman Kathy McMorris Rogers and the daughter of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, Sarah Huckabee, who earlier condemned the questioning of Palin as a mother:

On Thursday’s CBS "Early Show," co-host Harry Smith talked to Washington Post columnist Sally Quinn about what Hillary Clinton’s legacy will be after leaving the presidential race on Saturday and Quinn declared that: "I think that this is a tortured person who has run and run and run and gone for it and gone for it, and it's power, and it's this and it's that, and 'I've got to be there.' There's never a moment where you see her relaxing, where you see her really stopping to smell the roses."

Smith began the segment by asking: "What are we to take away? What did we see? What did we really witness?" Quinn responded:

...Hillary doesn't know what she wants. And she doesn't know who she really is...Remember when she first came into the White House and she had a different hairdo and a different outfit? She looked completely different. And people kept saying, 'Who is she?'...And even during the campaign this time...she was the strong one and the weak one. And, during this campaign, she -- she allowed him [Bill Clinton] to, on some levels, sabotage her. She was feisty at some point and even shrill, and then she would cry.

When Washington Post writer Sally Quinn came on the Charlie Rose show Wednesday night to discuss the Reverend Wright controversy, the accusations against whites flew wildly. Obama’s distancing from Wright was "so incredibly sad," and happened because "we are still a racist country," where "so many white Americans...have absolutely no idea what goes on inside black churches on a Sunday morning...and I think it brought out a lot of latent racism." She concluded the interview by insisting that whites "go to their white churches, and you wonder how they can call themselves Christians and still look at other people as though they are inferior."

Sally Quinn came on with Rev. Floyd Flake, a former Congressman from New York, who also discussed this with Rose the first time Wright became controversial. Quinn tried to say that Obama’s greater condemnation of Wright would help Obama, but it was tragic.

In an interesting way, I think it may have helped Obama, because I think that by [Wright] coming out the way he did, he allowed Obama to come out much more forcefully the way he did today. And he had to. He had absolutely no choice.

On Wednesday’s CBS "Early Show," co-host Harry Smith discussed a question being asked of Chelsea Clinton about Monica Lewinsky on the campaign trail with Washington Post reporter Sally Quinn, who was baffled by the media’s refusal to ask Chelsea tough questions: "Frankly, in all of my years of journalism, I have never seen the press lie down like this before. This is -- this is not what the American public thinks of as the critical and sort of -- killing, marauding, press corps – " Smith responded by admitting that: "Yeah, we're not exactly -- we're not exactly watchdogs here." [Audio available here]

Those comments were sparked by Smith asking Quinn: "As a press, though, we have basically, you know, said, 'okay, if those are the rules, you know, that's fine.' Have we sort of -- you know, have we laid down?"

Prior to talking to Quinn, Smith interviewed the Butler University college student, Evan Strange, who asked Chelsea the question at a campaign forum on campus. Strange, as it turns out, is a Clinton supporter:

On Tuesday’s CBS "Early Show," co-host Maggie Rodriguez did a segment on "why powerful men cheat," in the wake of Eliot Spitzer’s sex scandal, and talked to guests Dr. Sari Locker, a sex expert, and Washington Post reporter Sally Quinn, who said of Spitzer’s wife as well as other wives of cheating politician husbands: "The wife is always standing there while the husband is -- is apologizing. And -- I look at those women, and I think they might as well be in Perda, they might as well be Taliban women with scarves over their heads standing there because not once has any woman ever said, this is not acceptable."

Dr. Locker added to the discussion by condemning Spitzer and demanding his wife speak out:

And I'll tell you, I want it to stop because the fact is, in his inauguration speech, Governor Spitzer said that he wants to transform this government into something that is as ethical and wise as all of New York. And as a New Yorker, I'm appalled. And as a woman, though, I want to see his wife also say that she's appalled. So, I think it's time for women to really stop letting this happen.

Quinn later went to explain that some wives of politicians remain silent to hold on to political power, citing one example in particular:

QUINN: ...you know, you have to look at the motivations that the wives -- I mean, a lot of these wives' power is derivative. I mean, for instance, Hillary Clinton would not be running for president if her husband had not been running for president.

Sally Quinn, spouse of former Washington Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee and co-founder of the Post website's On Faith page, greeted the approaching holy day of Christmas by touting liberal and leftist books on religion and atheism in the Book World section: "These books offer a generosity of spirit, communion and wisdom. In a sense they are like the basic tenets of most religions -- they embody the Golden Rule. And they give us something to contemplate as we approach an often difficult, yet joyful and transcendent time of year." The most provocative political lesson in these four mini-reviews was from gay black Harvard Baptist minister Peter Gomes, author of The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus. Quinn explained:

He contends that Jesus is a revolutionary, a radical, and a socialist -- that Jesus "would not have been unsympathetic to the famous social slogan of the nineteenth century, 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.'"

Pat Buchanan was very moved. Chris Matthews "heard greatness this morning." Joe Scarborough said Romney "hit it out the park." But with his speech on faith this morning, Mitt clearly didn't make a believer out of Sally Quinn, doyenne of the DC establishment and wife of former WaPo editor Ben Bradlee.

SALLY QUINN: I have to say that I'm really stunned because I think it was an obliteration of the idea of the separation of church and state. He eliminated anybody who was a doubter, an atheist, an agnostic, a seeker. It's like, if you believe in God or Christ, if not, you're not.

View video here.