Team Romney: Yeah, you heard it right the first time - no Muslims need apply!

The Romney campaign is not even pretending to back away from Mitt's assertion that Muslims will not be welcome in his cabinet should he become president.

Kevin Madden, Romney’s national press secretary, told Politico: “At this point, we're not focused on what Gov. Romney's Cabinet might look like. But the governor does not believe that in order to effectively fight radical jihad you need to have Muslims serving in the Cabinet.”

As I pointed out earlier, this will certainly go over well with the GOP base, but at what cost, for the love of God?

Our political discourse has become so degraded that a mainstream political candidate thinks nothing of promising to engage in unlawful religious discrimination should he become president.

Remember, Romney's statement to the Christian Science Monitor was that, due to their minority status, he would not consider a Muslim for a cabinet-level position. This is as explicit a statement of religious bigotry as any I have heard.

By this rationale, we might also expect Romney to examine the overrepresentation of Jews in the federal government. But of course, he won't do that. Jews aren't involved in " radical jihad," after all. They're safe. Those dirty Muslims, on the other hand...

I am stunned by the shamelessness of Romney's bigotry. Every Republican candidate should be asked tomorrow night whether they share his vile belief that it is proper for our nation's chief executive to discriminate against religious minorities.

And I hope that every Democrat running for president will go out of their way to attack Romney over this. We cannot allow the mainstreaming of such poisonous, fringe political sentiments.