There’s not a lot on which he and Hitchens agree, I’d imagine, but this is one example and terrorism is another and that ain’t a bad place to start. I’m a little suspicious of Mitt’s redder-than-red-meat message push lately — the jihad ad, the “real Republican” rhetoric, the easy crowd-pleasing UN-bashing — but he’s making a play for the base and this is certainly the stuff of which such plays are made.

“The United Nations has been an extraordinary failure of late,” Romney said in response to a question at a pancake house along the coast of early voting South Carolina. “We should withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council.”

Actually, the United States doesn’t have a seat on the human rights council, which it has been boycotting.

Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom later clarified the remarks.

“The governor believes we ought to withdraw completely from the U.N. Human Rights Council, and that means ending our financial support in addition to not seeking a seat on the council,” Fehrnstrom said. “We should not legitimize the council, either with financial or diplomatic support.”

Romney also said he would support a new “coalition of the free nations of the world and bring those nations together so that we can act together.”

It’s just a tad curious to watch him stake out the most rock-ribbed Republican positions across the board knowing that he ran as a moderate for senate against Teddy in Massachusetts. Rudy’s guilty of the same thing, of course, but with a very notable exception in abortion; oddly enough, his steadfastness on that issue makes his pandering on things like gun rights and immigration seem ever so slightly more genuine by comparison, since it suggests that he’s willing to stick to his position if he really believes in it. In Mitt’s case, you almost have to wonder: When does a video of him endorsing the UN circa 1994 surface?

Here’s his latest ad, yet another nod at the base and a clear dig by implication at Rudy and Fred. Whoever the nominee is, I’d be perfectly happy with Ann Romney as First Lady.