Great news – with the publication of this it is clear that those rumours about the appointment of Thomas C Sharp as a Washington Post 2012 Election consultant appear to have a certain degree of substance. Just as Adolf Eichmann was regarded by the Nazis as an “expert” on Jews so Mr Sharp is an “expert” on Mormons.

War and extermination is inevitable! Citizens ARISE, ONE and ALL!!!—Can you stand by, and suffer such INFERNAL DEVILS! to ROB men of their property and RIGHTS, without avenging them. We have no time for comment, every man will make his own. LET IT BE MADE WITH POWDER AND BALL!!!

Like Eichmann Mr Sharp was also a man of action, playing a leading role in the raid on the Carthage Jailhouse in June 1844 when the Mormon leader Joseph Smith and his brother were murdered. He and others were charged with murder but were acquitted by a sympathetic jury.

Mr Sharp’s role will be to select historical references to Mormons which can be used to suggest that they are strange and a little sinister and therefore putting a Mormon like Mitt Romney in the White House might turn Washington into another Nauvoo.

Mr Sharp has apologised for his untoward behaviour in 1844. “I was a young man and hot tempered. Now I am 194 I have matured in my views…I no longer see Mormons as the devil’s spawn, just as a bunch of weirdoes who don’t like hope and change..”

Indeed at this very moment Mr Sharp has despatched scores of WaPo “investigative journalists” to Utah to track down Romney’s multiple wives currently undercover until January 2013….

Kathleen Parker dumps on C4P over Romney as flip-flopper.

The mere mention of a human role (vs., presumably, a divine plan) was enough to bestir the guardians of scientific inquiry at Conservatives4Palin, who averred that Romney is “simpatico” with Obama and that he “totally bought into the man-made global warming hoax.”

Construe it as a badge of honour.

Plus a heart warming bonus – Parker finds C4P irritating.

That is even better news because a lot of people have been finding Parker as annoying as nettlerash, not just since September 2008 but also when, angered by the sweaty multitudes of the Tea Party she launched her own Arugula Party.

What she hasn’t grasped, of course, is that nobody is saying that politicians should never alter their stance on a particular issue. In many ways an admission that their mind has been changed by a persuasive argument reflects well upon a person’s honesty and integrity.

However suspicions are aroused if the motive for the change of mind is more to please a constituency than a genuine conversion. When, as in Romney’s case, these shifts of position become legion then the mantle of flip floppery surely becomes deserved.

Or, as Auric Goldfinger once told James bond

‘Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action’.”

cross posted at C4P