"Honorable?"

Martin Peretz is still nuts. Indeed, we expect he will remain so until he dies.

Mitt Romney is a pious Mormon and an honorable man, as was his father

Also:

I’ve had many students at Harvard who are Mormons. They are honest, candid, smart, hardworking, and touched by the pain of others. That’s what I think motivates them to spend one or two years of their lives in service to others.

Apparently colossal intellect Peretz is unaware that two yrs. missionarying is not what any one would describe as "service to others," unless he thinks converting people & taking their money is a "service." We'd call it fraud, but why be picky, right?

And try to make sense of this:

Which brings me to former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, who is a Roman Catholic, a pious Roman Catholic. I would have thought that John F. Kennedy had done away with fright of the Catholics. And, for that matter, the Church, which has its own moral problems—here, there, everywhere. What with the universal sex scandal that has never been addressed candidly by the hierarchy, its authority in preaching the virtuous life on abortion, sexual matters and gay marriage, doctrine in general has been miserably undercut. Still, it’s not for me to press. Catholics will have to do that, and maybe Santorum himself has. I do not agree with much that Santorum says on other matters. (Although let me confess that on American foreign policy I find myself more in agreement with the Republicans—Paul excepting—than with the Democrats, or at least with the Democrat who is their standard-bearer.)

So Santorum said “we will always need a Jesus candidate.” What of it? It is clearly a metaphoric statement. It would be strange if a practicing Catholic, a believing Catholic, would not have the phrase and the thought close to his heart. For him, I suspect (no, I believe), a “Jesus candidate” means an ethical candidate, one who does not sully others, who does not lie, who nurtures the poor and the ill and those born to rotten lives. Yes, those born into prejudice and hatred. Of course, this is not exactly his politics. I’ve judged him separately on that. But are you certain—I am not—that those with whom we agree on health care and taxes are ethical human beings? On drones, for instance?

No rational person can.