Article VI Blog

Imus? Pro-Romney? Give it a minute, that'll change. Lowell: I note that the Imus web site describes John McCain as "an all-time I-Fave." If you listen to Imus you'll hear McCain once a week at least.

K-Lo quotes one of her Mormon readers on the Globe piece.

LDS Church official response to the Globe piece. Like I said, technical violation, rapidly and throughly dealt with. By the way, it strikes me as no accident that this story hit just a few days after Romney got over so well with Evangelicals at Liberty Sunday. Bear in mind the Halperin and Harris trade secret I allude to below. Lowell: After yesterday's "fisking" we're pretty much finished with that Globe story. I'll predict right now that it has no legs and will be forgotten by the weekend.

Update: I spoke too soon. The Globe continues to push the story, blithely stating that Romney is defending his "Mormon Strategy" and simply repeating some of yesterday's unsupported assertions. Today they're riding the tax-exempt hobby horse. Romney himself comments here, and archly notes:

"There are two factions of reporters where I come from in Massachusetts," he said. "We have the Hillary-loving, Ted Kennedy apologists — and we have the liberals."

And here's a tongue-in-cheek view.

FoxNews thinks Evangelicals are wising up. I hate to tell you, we were not that dumb to begin with. Lowell: Sadly, the MSM and the left side of the political spectrum (but I repeat myself) do tend to believe that lack of intellectual sophistication is the best explanation for religious conviction. This writer doesn't seem to be in that camp, but too many are.

Weekend update on the Boston Globe story (by Lowell): The October 21 Salt Lake Tribune re-hashes the Globe story. The Tribune re-reports the LDS Church's statement that no coordination took place between Romney's people and the church, and then, in an apparent effort to keep the flickering flame of the story alive, the Tribune writers note that the reports of Romney-Mormon coordination "could fan anti-Mormon feelings with many evangelical groups." In other words, coordination may not have occurred, but the mere allegation that it took place will upset evangelicals– kind of like false reports of Koran desecration caused Muslim rioting in Afghanistan.

"This is just what the Southern Baptists and others need to bash the [LDS] church," said Tony Kimball, a retired professor of American government at Bentley College in the Boston area.

"They are hostile to the church anyway. If they see Mitt's campaign as a Mormon campaign, that's going to drive them into a frenzy," said Kimball, who is LDS.

A frenzy? Oh, please. Permit me, as a Mormon, to be offended on behalf of evangelicals and thinking people everywhere. Both the Tribune's suggestion that an erroneous report will cause serious upset among evangelicals and Mr. Kimball's "frenzy" statement are simply offensive. And why, by the way, is Mr. Kimball's religion significant to this story? Why, for that matter, is Mr. Kimball even quoted, other than his personal friendship with one of the Tribune's reporters?

It seems that if you are looking for responsible and sensitive coverage of religion and the Romney campaign, you may be hard-pressed to find it in the legacy news media.

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