ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today’s OFF-SET questions is Tricia Erickson, author of the new book,"Can Mitt Romney Serve Two Masters? The Mormon Church Versus The Office Of The Presidency of the United States of America."

She runs a communications company, Crisis Management, Incorporated and Angel Pictures & Publicity, a political and entertainment publicity and consulting company that promotes conservative causes and personalities.

Erickson is scheduled to be a guest "In The Arena" tonight (Aug. 3, 2011) at 8 p.m. ET on CNN (this is an encore presentation of an interview with Erickson originally published July 7, 2011).

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Due to the provocative–and in some cases, inflammatory– nature of Erickson's answers, we asked for a response from Mormon historian Richard Bushman, the Howard W. Hunter Visiting Professor of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University in California. His remarks follow the answers below, along with reactions from Corey P. Saylor, National Legislative Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and Ahmed M. Rehab, Executive Director, CAIR-Chicago.)

You ask, “Can Mitt Romney serve two masters?” He was governor of Massachusetts from 2003 – 2007 and his belief in Mormonism seems to have only served him well. Why would this be different if he were elected president?

Let me say that my book is divided in to two parts. Part I covers the spiritual aspect. Part II covers the political. Both parts are important when considering voting for this possible front runner.

To answer the above question, I would not say that Mr. Romney’s beliefs served him well during his governorship except in the case that Mormons are taught to shine a light on Mormonism in a way that would draw converts to the church, and if Mr. Romney’s office helped to promote Mormonism, this was a win/win. FULL POST

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today’s five OFF-SET questions is Linda Salvucci, Chairwoman-elect of the National Council for History Education. 

An associate professor in the Department of History at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, she has taught a variety of courses on the British and Spanish Atlantic World, on early American history, and on the craft of history, along with a First Year Seminar, “Remembering the Alamo: Myth, Memory and History.”  She is coauthor of various editions of Call to Freedom, a U.S. history textbook for 8th and 9th graders.  Her current research is a book project, “Ironies of Empire: The United States – Cuba Trade in a New Atlantic World, 1760-1868.”

This is an encore presentation of an interview with Salvucci originally published June 17, 2011, which is now linked from this related article: If students fail history, does it matter?

This past week, we learned that American students are less proficient in the history of the United States than in any other subject. The New York Times reported that the National Assessment of Educational Progress released the results of a nationwide exam given to thousands of students. According to the results, most fourth graders couldn’t explain why Abraham Lincoln was important. Eighth graders couldn’t identify why American forces had an advantage over the British during the Revolution.

How much attention do you pay to this report?

With a doff of the hat to Sarah Palin, the NAEP report on U.S. history is the proverbial sounding of the alarm. 

Some argue that American students have always been deficient in their knowledge of U.S. history, but I do think that we are at a particularly difficult juncture.  The situation is deteriorating because of the reasons listed below.  It truly is the “perfect storm” of inadequate attention to, training in, and support for history education.  FULL POST

Officials in New York conducted he first same-sex marriages in the state Sunday, July 24, as nearly 800 couples lined up to get hitched at the city clerk's office.

The mark this historical event, here's an encore presentation of an interview originally published June 27, 2011.

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today's six OFF-SET questions is New York State Assemblyman Daniel O'Donnell. Elected to the 69th Assembly District in 2002, he is the first openly gay man in the New York State Assembly. 

O'Donnell graduated with a B.A. in Public Affairs from George Washington University and a law degree from CUNY Law School.  For seven years, he served as a public defender in the Brooklyn office of the Legal Aid Society before opening his own public interest law firm on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

O’Donnell led the Marriage Equality Act to passage in the New York State Assembly for the fourth time since 2007. Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the measure last Friday night and New York became the sixth and largest state to legalize same-sex marriage. The law makes it legal for same-sex couples to marry, and extends the associated rights, responsibilities, and protections of marriage to all same-sex married couples.

Gov. Cuomo credited four Republican senators who joined the majority of the state's Senate Democrats for the passage of the bill, saying they were "people of courage." Do you know what argument swayed the GOP senators? What arguments did you make to convince hesitant assemblymen?

I think the arguments that truly persuaded my colleagues were ones based on the necessity of equality, justice, and fairness under our state's laws. One of the Senate Republicans, Senator Grisanti, mentioned in his remarks on the bill that he could not find any good legal argument to be made against legalizing same-sex marriage.

I think this is completely true – there really aren't legitimate legal reasons for the state to deny me and my partner the rights and responsibilities associated with marriage that are given to thousands of other New Yorkers every year. I think the Senators who voted "yes" all realized that truth, and it is certainly something I discussed when speaking with my colleagues in the Assembly about this issue. FULL POST

The U.S. space shuttle program is over. Shuttle Atlantis landed early this morning at the Kennedy Space Center to end the 30-year-old shuttle program (CLICK HERE for the full story). 

The following is an encore presentation of an interview on the U.S. space program that was originally published July 8, 2011.

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today’s OFF-SET questions is Tom Wolfe, author of such cherished bestsellers as "The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby"; "The Pump House Gang"; "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test"; "The Painted Word"; "Mauve Gloves & Madmen"; "Clutter & Vine"; "From Bauhaus to Our House"; "The Bonfire of the Vanities"; "A Man in Full"; "Hooking Up"; and "I Am Charlotte Simmons."

In 1979 Wolfe completed a book he had been at work on for more than six years, an account of the rocket airplane experiments of the post World War II era and the early space program focusing upon the psychology of the rocket pilots and the astronauts and the competition between them. “The Right Stuff” became a bestseller and won the American Book Award for nonfiction, the National Institute of Arts and Letters Harold Vursell Award for prose style, and the Columbia Journalism Award.

"The right stuff," "radical chic," and "the Me Decade" (sometimes altered to "the Me Generation") all became popular phrases, but, according to his website, Wolfe seems proudest of "good ol' boy," which he introduced to the written language in a 1964 article in Esquire about Junior Johnson, the North Carolina stock car racing driver, which was called "The Last American Hero."

The U.S. has spent $209.1 billion on the space shuttle program. From your point of view, what did the program accomplish?

Believe me, I am not discounting the bravery and skill of the atronauts or the genius of the engineers in the least, but the main thing the Shuttle program accomplished was to keep the lights on down in Houston a little longer.

You know when Congress lost interest in the space program? It was on July 20, 1969, the moment Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. O.K., we did that, we beat the Russians. Now let's use all that money for . . .hmmm . . .other things. FULL POST

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today’s six OFF-SET questions is seven-time bestselling author and conservative political commentator Ann Coulter.  She is author of the new book, “DEMONIC: How the Liberal Mob is Endangering America.”

Coulter is the legal correspondent for Human Events and writes a popular syndicated column for Universal Press Syndicate. A Connecticut native, Coulter graduated with honors from Cornell University School of Arts & Sciences, and received her J.D. from University of Michigan Law School, where she was an editor of The Michigan Law Review.

This interview was originally published on June 7, 2011.

In your new book, you make the case that liberal thought in America has, as its source, mob behaviors. You write that some of those behaviors include myth-making, an embrace of contradictory ideas, a mob mentality that paints all sort of people as enemies, the creation of messiahs, and the acceptance of political violence as a valid solution. How did you come to reach this conclusion about liberals?

Mostly from being around liberals so much.  I sensed it was true, had the idea for the book, and read about a half-dozen books on groupthink, mobs, riots, etc.  Then I stumbled on Gustave Le Bon, the French philosopher, social psychologist and father of groupthink.  Page after page of his book "The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind," uncannily describes the behavior of the American liberal - and it was written 100 years ago!   FULL POST

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today’s six OFF-SET questions Don Lemon, who anchors CNN Newsroom during weekend prime-time and serves as a correspondent across CNN/U.S. programming.

Based in the network's world headquarters in Atlanta, Lemon joined CNN in September 2006. Ebony named him in 2009 as one of the Ebony Power 150: the most influential Blacks in America.  Lemon is author of the new book, "Transparent."

[Update: Lemon will host "In The Arena" tonight and tomorrow (July 18-19) at 8 p.m. ET on CNN. This OFF-SET interview was originally published May 19, 2011.]

I suppose we should get right to it: how did writing what was supposed to be an inspirational book lead you to the decision to declare publicly that you are gay?

It's really simple.  The only thing I know for sure is my own story. And I've done pretty well being myself.  Part of who I am is a gay man. So why would I leave that out? 

You told the NYTimes that being gay “is about the worst thing you can be in black culture.”  What advice would you give gay black teens today who are not out?

First, be happy with who you are. FULL POST

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today's five OFF-SET questions is Paul Provenza, host of Showtime's "The Green Room with Paul Provenza," a roundtable program featuring great comedians, speaking off-the-cuff and uncensored.

Provenza started his stand-up career at the age of 17, graduated with the first Theater Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania and studied in London with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. His TV series work include his own ABC-TV series "The Pursuit of Happiness;" recurring roles on "The Facts of Life," "Northern Exposure,"  "Empty Nest;" and "The West Wing;" hosting Nickelodeon's "Kids Court," and numerous late night TV appearances. He co-produced, directed and edited the one-(profoundly-lewd-yet-hysterical)-joke documentary "The Aristocrats," and is author of the book, "¡Satiristas!"  He is also a frequent panelist on NPR's oddly-informative quize show, "Wait...Wait..Don't Tell Me."

Provenza is scheduled to appear In The Arena later on Wednesday, July 13.

Of the almost dozen Republican candidates for president, who are you paying the most attention to?

I’m paying most attention to Michelle Bachman, mostly because I don’t really even know why she’s even a thing.  She’s like the Kim Kardashian of politics, except without the sex. I’m waiting for the moment she snaps and starts doing Wiccan chants during stump speeches.  FULL POST

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today’s five OFF-SET questions is Rodell Mollineau, who worked for Sen. Harry Reid (D.Nev) as staff director for the Senate Democratic Communications Center.

In April, 2011, became president of American Bridge 21^st Century, a “super PAC” created as a counterweight to Republican groups that influence elections.

American Bridge “aims to record every handshake, every utterance by Republican candidates in 2011 and 2012.” So reported The New York Times last week. How many people does it take to record everything that these candidates do and say?

Voters have to know what each candidate stands for before they decide who to support on election day. If a Republican candidate pledges take Medicare away from America’s seniors to pay for tax breaks for oil companies, voters deserve to see it with their own eyes.

In late 2012, when Republicans attempt to gain the support of moderates, voters need to hear the extreme proposals they advocated during the primary campaign. By capturing candidates’ public statements on video, American Bridge can show voters what is really at stake when they pull that lever in the voting booth.

In order to capture as much footage as possible, American Bridge already has a dozen trackers (and counting) throughout the early presidential primary states and states with competitive Senate and House races. FULL POST

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today’s five OFF-SET questions is Ambassador Nancy Brinker, founder and CEO of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the world’s leading grassroots breast cancer advocacy organization.   The organization has invested more than $1.9 billion in breast cancer research, education, screening and treatment.

She served as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Hungary from 2001-2003 and was U.S. Chief of Protocol from 2007-2008 where she was responsible for coordinating ceremonial events for visiting heads of state as well as overseeing all protocol matters for Presidential or Vice Presidential travel abroad.

She was named one of TIME magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” in 2008 and in 2010, Brinker released her New York Times best-selling memoir "Promise Me."

Ambassador Brinker, a breast cancer survivor herself, will be attending the Palm Desert, California, service for former First Lady Betty Ford on Tuesday as a guest of the Ford family.

In 1974, Mrs. Ford revealed publicly that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Why was this act so courageous and so important?

It’s really hard for many people today to imagine how very different things were in 1974.  We didn’t talk about cancer very much in those days and certainly not about breast cancer.  It was considered impolite at best to discuss it and very often was a source of shame for women who had it.

Many people thought cancer was contagious, and this was a belief that would persist for many years. This was the world that Betty Ford lived in when she was diagnosed.

She opened the door for untold numbers of women who were dealing with this disease in silence. FULL POST

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today's OFF-SET questions is Clint House, the former roommate of Casey Anthony's ex-boyfriend, Tony Lazzaro. House, who knew Casey and her murdered daughter, Caylee,  testified for the prosecution at her murder trial.

House has joined Michelle Crowder and Change.org's petition drive to create Caylee's Law. The goal is to make it a felony to not report your child under the age of 18 missing after 24 hours. 

CLICK HERE to read our OFF-SET interview with Michelle Crowder. 

House is an owner of FutureOne Entertainment in Jacksonville, Florida.

Why did you decide to join the Caylee's Law campaign?

I decided to join the Caylee's Law campaign because Caylee needs a voice. Being intimately connected to this case has changed me as a person and I am looking forward to all the hard work that is in front of us in our fight to give Caylee the justice that the court system failed to give her.

When you said that you were "deeply saddened that Caylee did not get the justice she deserved in court," what do you mean? What do you think she deserved?

Since we will never find out what really happened to Caylee or who was responsible for her death, it's up to us to memorialize her and make sure she has a place in the history books. FULL POST