A number of Romney fans are mad at me this morning for highlighting Bill Bennett’s negative reaction to the Romney chatter this week in my piece today — accusing me of trying to tear down the most conservative frontrunner.

Other e-mailers are mad at me for talking to George Allen’s slayer (Sabato).

A) Romney had a bad week(s) in terms of the commentariat. That’s just so. The Bennett comments were worth noting, I thought, because it’s not just Richard Cohen reacting badly, even if news that Romney wasn’t running as a pro-life guy in 2002 is no new news. I thought Bennett’s reaction was an overreaction (and I think I make that clear), but also certainly understandable.

Of course while we’re talking he’s been stumping and raising money.

B) Re: Allen: I think that the candidate and his team’s reaction had something to do with that loss, too.

On Romney, it’s no secret I’m partial to him. I hope he rises about all this and I have no doubt he can. Whether or not he does, the coming weeks and months will tell. It may turn out that airing all this stuff early will be an advantage to him. Time will tell. But it is so early. In the meantime it would be foolish and wrong not to pay attention to what people are saying.

And maybe it’s a good sign for Romney that there are a lot of passionate well-spoken (or written) Romney fans on the Internet — I’m certainly hearing from them today.