CNN is reporting that failed Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney will endorse his former rival John McCain. During the Boston press conference, Romney will apparently also call for his GOP delegates to support McCain at the Republican National Convention this summer.
While the announcement comes as no surprise, it is a remarkably swift reversal for Romney, who just days ago pilloried McCain for everything from immigration policy and taxes to insufficient fealty to the ghost of Ronald Reagan.
But on one topic, Mitt Romney and John McCain surely agree: each promised to get biblical on Osama Bin Laden.

Over the course of the campaign, Senator McCain has repeated his pledge to hunt down Osama Bin Laden and follow him "to the gates of hell." In May, McCain described himself as the dog that'll hunt:

"We will do whatever is necessary. We will track him down. We will capture him. We will bring him to justice, and I will follow him to the gates of Hell."

Last October, McCain told workers at a small weapons factory in New Hampshire:

"I will follow Osama Bin Laden to the gates of hell and I will shoot him with your products."

And in January, McCain reassured suspicious South Carolina voters as well, just in case they had missed his earlier promises on the point:

"My friends, I want to stand before you now and tell you that if I have to follow him to the gates of hell I will get Osama Bin Laden and I will bring him to justice. I will get him!"

Mitt Romney, too, wants to get his hate on when it comes to the Al Qaeda chieftain. After his initial misstep in the GOP's Bin Laden Derby in April ("It's not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person"), Romney returned to the script a week later:

"He's going to pay, and he will die."

As Romney exited the GOP race at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) last week, he lamented that he couldn't join John McCain on the Bin Laden firing squad:

"I disagree with Senator McCain on a number of issues, as you know. But I agree with him on doing whatever it takes to be successful in Iraq, on finding and executing Osama bin Laden, and on eliminating Al Qaeda and terror."

Mitt Romney, of course, is already preparing his 2012 run for the White House. But in the mean time, he needs to score points with Republican voters. So until November, Mitt Romney will follow John McCain to the gates of hell.