<i>I ran all that by Romney spokeswoman Sarah Pompei. She was not amused and not commenting.</i>

I'm shocked.  We really are living in the crazy years.

I'd say if underwear is a theological issue, as it is with some Mormons apparently, then yes, it very much IS fair game. You could respond similarly to a transubstantiation question posed to a Catholic by asking, "Have we really reached the point where it's acceptable to write about what a candidate eats in church?"

Mike:

Have we reached the point where it is acceptable for a campaign to accuse a black candidate of being a drug dealer, as Billy Shaheen did today? Furthermore, is Billy Shaheen/the Clinton hack who thought this strategy up ALSO on drugs?

Hmm, I'm confused.  According to mittromneysunderwear.com, the bottoms are supposed to be knee-length.  Thus, it seems, the briefs would not qualify as the holy underwear we've all heard so much about.  Does that mean that Romney's not wearing his special underwear all the time in accordance with church teaching?  Or does he dispense with it entirely?  Has the church made an accommodation regarding the underwear we don't know about?  How Mormon is Romney?  I think this is a bombshell scoop from the Sun.

I'm more interested in the size-34 waist. Even when I had a size-34 waist, I had to wear size-36 briefs. So Mitt has a real waist size of not more than 33 inches. I'm just a shade over 6'0", and I was positively scrawny when I had a 34-inch waist. Mitt is said to be 6'2", so with a 33-inch waist he'd have to weigh something like 160, tops, maybe more like 145.

Which is to say, does Mitt Romney have an eating disorder? Does he suffer from hunger-induced delirium? Very underweight people, such as a 6'2" tall man with a mere 33 inch waist, suffer much higher rates of clinical depression, heart disease, ulcers, and blood disease. As Melville wrote, "Hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple dumpling," referring to the psychic effects of prolonged hunger. I'd prefer a president with a little meat on his bones -- one doesn't want the finger on the nuclear button to get the shakes every afternoon.

Rhubarbs, Richardson is your man then.