Romney Looks Presidential Posted by Shadi Hamid

Wow. Romney's pretty damn impressive. He really does look presidential. He's a great speaker too. Put this guy next to McCain and Guiliani, and it's really no contest on the charisma-meter.

One thing kind of bothered me. He was talking about the jihadist/terrorist threat, and listed Hezbollah, Hamas, Al-Qaeda, Iran...and then the Muslim Brotherhood? Huh? The Muslim Brotherhood renounced violence in the 1970s and represents the leading opposition bloc in the Egyptian parliament (with 88 members). The group has publicly committed itself to the rules of the democratic game. Anyway, it's unfortunate that Romney did the standard Republican mistake of thinking that all Islamists are a monolithic terrorist threat, when there are clear, obvious distinctions within Islamism, between radical Islamists (those who operate outside the political system and use violence) and mainstream Islamists (those who operate within the system and renounce violence). Misinformation.