In which Newt serves up meat so red it’s still mooing. I’m all for this idea, by the way — not because the treaty has a prayer of passing at the dictator hangout at Turtle Bay but because it’d be fascinating to see how many votes it got even from western nations. Anyone imagine the UK, say, signing onto some international version of the Second Amendment? Even if it passed, where else except the UK and a few other rule-of-law western countries would the right actually be observed? It’d be a parchment guarantee, as so many human rights are. Beyond that, here’s a thought experiment for Newt: If we could wave a magic wand and grant the disenfranchised of the Earth small arms with which to resist their oppressors, things would improve dramatically — after a lot of blood spilled — in places like Iran and North Korea. But what about, say, Saudi Arabia? Are we looking at a good outcome if the Wahhabists there were suddenly armed to the teeth? The right to bear arms is the ultimate guarantor of democracy. Make sure you support democracy in all instances before demanding it universally.

That’s the first clip. The second is a snippet of Romney’s obligatory reminder to the audience of The One’s comment to Medvedev about being more “flexible” in his second term. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, especially for a moderate who’s looking to get elected by appealing to conservatives, but I’m pretty sure Captain Flexibility will keep a polite distance from people’s guns should he win in November. What would he achieve by trying to get a gun-control measure passed? Purple-state Democrats would run screaming from him, at which the point the heads of the DSCC and DCCC would want a word with him about being “unhelpful.” The Senate’s likely to be redder next year than it is this year too, so good luck breaking a filibuster on a new gun-grabbing statute. Exit quotation from NRO’s Charles Cooke: “One of the things that gives me heart about the future of liberty in America is how comprehensively we’ve won the gun debate since 1990.”