The good folks at CNN were kind enough to have me appear last night, chatting about the Mitt Romney’s radio interview with Des Mickelson. (A YouTube clip has been posted, I’m the one identifed as the “NRO Toadie.”) Apparently there are worse moments than the clip we saw, but it’s hard to get all that shocked, outraged, or surprised by Romney’s reaction. As I said last night, Romney offered the calmest “tantrum” I’ve ever seen; he didn’t even deploy the word, “golly.”

Yes, yes, I’m the guy who said that some significant portion of American voters might find Romney’s faith too alien and strange to vote for him. But I don’t see how Romney doesn’t come out of that exchange looking better than Mickelson. Faith is a supremely personal matter to millions of Americans, and I don’t know how many people would relish questions on theology and their church’s doctrine from a radio talk show host. Mickelson’s free to ask the questions, and Romney’s free to say, “that’s too personal, it has nothing to do with the office of the Presidency, and so I’m not going to answer that question.” Mickelson accuses him of “running from his faith” and that’s way out of line. In the end, even presidential candidates are entitled to a certain realm of privacy, and Romney’s not accountable for every utterance and line of thought from his church.

The other thing I’m struck by is that when they’re off the air, the only difference between “off the air” Mitt and “on the air” Mitt is that “on the air” Mitt uses more hand gestures.

(Appearing with me last night was FireDogLake’s Jane Hamsher. I’m reminded of the lines introducing Fred Thompson’s character on Law & Order:

Sutherland: Have you met the new D.A.?
McCoy: Nice fella.
Sutherland: And his politics?
McCoy: Nice fella.

CNN seems to have be appearing semi-regularly on Sunday nights, usually with John Avarosis of AmericaBlog. If you’ve got nothing going on those evenings, tune in.)