Article VI Blog

We have already discussed over the weekend, the Mormon “slips” of Newt Gingrich and John King.  But that is just the tip of the iceberg, as Jay Nordlinger points out.  And like an iceberg, it appears to be something that while unseen can still sink the ship.

Over the weekend we were treated to three major left wing pieces discussing Romney’s religion and calling on him to discuss it “openly.”  There was Randall Balmer in The New Republic:

The essential question, from the perspective of many voters, concerns the very nature of Mormonism, an upstart religion born in western New York in 1830 and persecuted for much of the nineteenth century.

And Then Frank Bruni in the NYTimes:

Four years later, he still avoids the word, trumpeting his faithfulness without specifying the faith. What’s surprising is that no one around him — not reporters, not rivals — talks about it all that much, either.

And most notably, Frank Rich in The New Yorker:

That faith is key to the Romney mystery. Had the 2002 Winter Olympics not been held in Salt Lake City, and not been a major civic project of Mormon leaders there, it’s unlikely Romney would have gotten involved. (Whether his involvement actually prompted a turnaround of that initially troubled enterprise, as he claims, is a subject of debate.) But Romney is even less forthcoming about his religion than he is about his tax returns. When the Evangelical view of Mormonism as a non-Christian cult threatened his 2008 run, Romney delivered what his campaign hyped as a JFK-inspired speech on “Faith in America.” This otherwise forgotten oration was memorable only for the number of times it named Romney’s own faith: once.

Michael Walsh, standing on NRO’s Corner said of the Rich piece:

It’s a cold day in hell when I recommend anything my old chum Frank Rich writes, but this long piece in New York magazine entitled “Who in God’s Name Is Mitt Romney?” is most definitely worth a read — especially for the Republican leadership — if only as a preview of a coming leftist line of attack against the presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney: his Mormon heritage and faith.

There is clearly a storm brewing.  One is tempted to look at this and think that the general election is shaping up to be one of the ugliest in history.  I think that is true, but I also think there is more at stake.  In Florida we saw a willingness by Democrats to mess with the Republican primary process, blatantly.  Two more piece appeared over the weekend that are very worthy of note.  Jennifer Rubin:

Politico’s John Harris has a must-read column on the manufacture of outrage, a staple of modern campaigns, over Mitt Romney’s comments on the “very poor.”

[...]

And yet on this one, the right was arguably more guilty than the left in stoking hysteria. The arguments offered to justify the overreaction were decidedly unconvincing.

One must ask, “Why?”  And so we turn to Sean Trende doing the numbers at Real Clear Politics:

Regardless, we see that a large portion of the GOP fight can be explained very well using only demographic variables. This is what I believe Cost picked up on when he found that northern conservatives voted for Romney, while southern conservatives voted against him. In the north, the conservatives tend to be non-evangelical. In the south, they tend to be evangelical (in Florida, they’re split).

Why this is the case is open to interpretation. The simplest answer is anti-Mormon bias, but that seems a bit too easy. After all, the alternatives are a pair of Catholics. The other possibility — and this is a problem with regression — is that religion could be a stand-in for ideology, and that, regardless of self-identification, a self-described conservative evangelical Republican is significantly to the right of a self-described conservative who is non-evangelical.

There is a clear picture emerging – the tensions inside the Republican party are real and the borders are defined, at least in some large measure, by religion.  Now, of course, all primaries develop tensions inside a party, but religion adds a dimension to those tensions not normally seen.  I don’t want to go all left-wing, “religion is evil” here, but a religious component to a conflict more often than not serves to intensify the conflict.

What we are seeing in the Ballmer, Bruni, and Rich pieces, not to mention related pieces centering around the recently released book “The Real Romney” questioning Romney’s “authenticity,” is an effort on the part of Obama’s media allies to cleave the Republican party in two.  They don’t just want to win the presidency, I think they want to do away with us for good.  It appears to this observer that they believe the largely unspoken religious element of this primary cycle gives the typical primary tensions more force – force that with a small nudge could cleave the party permanently.  At the very least, they think they can force a large portion of the Republican base to sit this one out – and make it very hard for the Republicans to pull them back in.

Yes, there is still a primary battle to fight, but it is not too early to think about the general.  At this point, the best way to think about the general is to deal with the tensions in the primary.  In the lead up to Florida we wrote about the problems in lying to oneself.  Just because we are not talking about Romney’s faith, does not mean it is not at play.  To simply not talk about it is a form of self-deception.  We can ill afford such deception with a general election looming ahead that is likely to be as ugly as this one.

Mitt Romney is now very likely going to be the nominee.  It is time for those opposed to him for less than legitimate reasons to get over it.  We need to get the primary battle back on a footing that does not supply the REAL opposition so much ammunition.

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Until the freudian slip:

“Governor Mormon?”!  Really?  It’s going to be a very ugly general.  But I wonder if that has anything to do with this?

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Well, that’s what the pundits are calling it. “Home state,” of course, is a veiled way of saying “a state with a sizeable Mormon population.” (Fact: Nevada’s Mormons comprise 7% of its citizenry.) I’ve been following the Twitter commentary all day, and that theme has been relentless. There were comments on how Mormons organize informally, tweets from the Hard-right punditry wondering why Mormons even support Romney, and so on.

Finally, as the polls were closing, frequent Romney critic David Freddoso of NRO let loose an inconvenient bit of information:

“Non-Mormons seem to have preferred Romney over Gingrich by 42%-26%, a margin similar to that in Florida” http://bit.ly/wffowM

Oops.

Fox is also reporting that Romney won Catholics by a 2 to 1 margin, against two Catholic opponents.

Oops again.

Finally, Justin Hart, a Romney supporter, tweeted that if not a single Mormon had voted in Nevada, Romney would still have won by 20 points. You can do the arithmetic.

We do not – not – expect the news media to drop its obsession with Romney’s Mormonism as a theme for much of their analysis of his success. But we do like to point out, as often as we can, how specious their analysis is.

We also got this, in Romney’s victory speech:

“I will protect religious freedom and will overturn any regulation that tramples on our first freedom: our right to worship as we choose.”

That is clearly a reference to this week’s Obama administration rule requiring faith-based employers to include contraception services (including elective abortions) in the health insurance plans they offer their employees. We blogged about that in our post this morning. I am sure that John’s heart is gladdened by Romney’s statement, as is mine. No doubt Romney will develop that theme in the coming weeks and months. Jennifer Rubin tweeted that it will probably be a major attack point for him.

We’ll have more to say after all the numbers are in and the dust settles.

UPDATE: Even Gingrich just excused his crushing defeat by noting that “Nevada is a heavily Mormon state.” Will the press let him get away with that? Probably.

John, The Next Morning Says

In all my morning reading, only one source notes Newt’s clear Mormon swipe.  We did the math yesterday morning on this thing.  Not to mention that I fail to understand how 7% of anything is “heavily.”

I spent several years of my life in the early ’90′s working the gold mines in Nevada.  Mining is the second biggest industry in the state, behind gaming.  (I am an environmental consultant after all.)  There are very few roads in the state I have not driven on in part because there are very few roads in the state outside of Las Vegas and Reno.  In all that travel I don’t think I can remember seeing a stake house.  I can not leave my house here in SoCal without tripping over a Mormon structure of some sort, but in Nevada? – give me a break.

Gingrich’s comment is simply despicable.  Gingrich is done as a candidate.  Santorum has a case yet to make, but Gingrich is done.  Sadly, he will garner enormous press because he is a good show – but like most of what passes for “good TV” these days, its side show material – a little off color, trashy, with just a hint of forbidden.

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YouTube is full of people that think it is cool to see and hear themselves on the internet.  David Parkman, whoever that is, must be one of those people.  He has his own YouTube channel and his episodes tend to pull in less viewers than this blog has daily readers – by an order of magnitude.  But he has his own logo and everything?!

Here is his latest installment, notable only because he repeats the shoddy journalism, to say the least, of Gawker.  Now, if that is not enough, in the guise of an original presentation, he virtually reads the story word for word.  Somewhere he missed the incomplete and very defensive corrections Gawker made. (check the story)  He claims to have done “original research,” yet he could not even be bothered with original copy and clearly did not bother to read this blog.

You know, we probably just tripled this guy’s views – and that is not a good thing.  But this story line is so ill-informed, so ugly and so distasteful that we have no choice.

Mr. Parkman, if you are going to pass on left-wing anti-religious garbage, it’s a free country – but please – when you claim to have “looked into it more” – actually do so.

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Burns & Haberman:

Newt Gingrich accused Mitt Romney of repeatedly disregarding the religious rights of Americans at a campaign stop in Tampa Monday, telling reporters that his opponent had a “lack of concern for religious liberty.”

When it comes to how they handle faith, Gingrich said, Romney and President Barack Obama are cut from the same cloth.

“You want a war on the Catholic Church by Obama? Guess what: Romney refused to allow Catholic hospitals to have conscience in their dealing with certain circumstances,” Gingrich said, apparently referring to the handling of emergency contraception in universal health care laws.

He went on, speaking to a CNN reporter as a pack of press surrounded him: “Romney cut off kosher food to elderly Jews on Medicare. Both of them have the same lack of concern for religious liberty.”

Gingrich escalated the attack in his remarks in an airplane hangar, saying Americans deserve a “government that respects our religions.”

“I’m a little bit tired of being lectured about respecting every … religion on the planet, I would like him to respect our religion,” he said. A campaign spokesman confirmed Gingrich was referring to Romney.

What?  I mean seriously – WHAT? The kosher meal crack has already been shown to be a lie.  Jennifer Rubin:

His attacks on Mitt Romney have gotten loonier by the day. The latest is that Romney denied kosher meals to Medicare patients while he was governor of Massachusetts. According to the Romney camp, he issued numerous vetoes during his tenure for cost-cutting measures and restored funding for the kosher meals. The New York Post backs up Romney’s account: “The Massachusetts Legislature approved an amendment to restore the $600,000 to finance the kosher meals allowing a ‘most vulnerable segment of our population’ to ‘enjoy a special dignity,’ according to the Jewish Community Council.”

OK – lying – that’s not new with Gingrich, but he usually reserves his lies for talking about himself.  Now he is lying about Romney and his record.  Rubin handled the kosher meal issue pretty well.  I am getting tired of people conflating Massachusetts healthcare with what Romney wanted to do.  Romney vetoed efforts by the Democrat legislature to do what Gingrich complains about, and the legislature overrode the veto.  There is no credible way to lay that one in Romney’s lap.

But all of that would have been just politics at their ugly usual save for that last crack by the Newtser:

“I’m a little bit tired of being lectured about respecting every … religion on the planet, I would like him to respect our religion,” he said. A campaign spokesman confirmed Gingrich was referring to Romney.

At a minimum that’s a dog whistle.  Look, I understand there is a significant group of people out there who do not want to vote for Romney because of his faith - and I am sure that they are upset that their argument has been shot down to the point that virtually all reasonable people feel it illegitimate.  But that does not change the facts.  Apparently, however, Gingrich is willing to change some other facts in order to get that religious argument back into the debate.

What is worst of all is that in the middle of a very serious war on religion in all its expressions from the government along precisely the lines that Gingrich outlines, he is willing to aim his barbs at others on his team rather than at those that deserve the fire.  Newt Gingrich clearly is about nothing but Newt Gingrich.

And He Has Help, from None Other Than…Sarah Palin

Everyone knows Sarah Palin, a noted Gingrich supporter, has a much-visited Facebook page.  It looks like any defense of Romney’s Mormonism on Palin’s page is promptly removed.  Consider these two screen shots:

See that middle post – with the girl’s picture beside it (we have erased the names for obvious reasons).  It reads:

I was told if we defend the Church of Jesus Christ, Latter Day Saints, we are then banned form your Facebook page.  I would hope “RELIGIOUS FREEDOM” is still part of your beliefs, and this is not true.  I am a catholic, yet I have researched hte LDS< visited their headquarters in SLC when there on vacation.  I have many firends who are members of the LDS, and a family member who converted to the Mormon Religion.  I am sick of the bashing of a religion by supposed Conservatives and Republicans.  It must end!

Now, take a look at the screenshot below.  It is taken from that same place on Palin’s Facebook page about 5 hours later; the comment just quoted is missing.  This blog does not provide room for us to reproduce these screenshots full size and maintain readability; just click the picture and it will come up full size.

These screenshots were sent to us by  loyal reader Chanelle Jones, who emailed us.  We’ll let her tell her own story:

Some one [ed. note: on the Facebook page] said that Romney was a Mormon that vowed to destroy America … which comment is still available BTW  – I can find it if you want … she said a couple other things that were pretty nasty towards our religion and Romney. My brother left a comment asking that the offensive comment  be removed and remember to keep Church and State seperate. His comment was deleted and then he was banned. He emailed me, frustrated, and out of couriosity I checked it out. I then left a comment pointing out that Sarah was censoring her comments and violating freedom of speech. I asked that she remember what our nation was founded on … freedom of religion … and also asked to have the offensive comments removed. One reader left a comment of “Wow … censorship?” His and my comments were then deleted and I was banned. BUT the same vile comment {and now many others} were left for all to see. I really wish I could have seen it coming and took a screen shot of it. That’s why when I saw the comment today I did and then watched it.

Well, that pretty much speaks for itself.  Sarah Palin is a private citizen and entitled to handle her Facebook page as she sees fit, but she is an influential private citizen and by defending Gingrich in this fashion, she paints him with the same bigoted brush she has painted herself.

Newt Gingrich and, sadly, Sarah Palin have just disqualified themselves from serious consideration for high office.

ADDENDUM – 5 HOURS AFTER INITIAL PUBLICATION

The Wall Street Journal gives us more on Gingrich’s statements:

“He has no understanding of the importance of conscience or the importance of religious liberty in this country,” said Mr. Gingrich of Mr. Romney, who is a Mormon. “I will make religious liberty your right, to go with God with no government interference.”

Now wait just a doggone minute.  I thought Newt Gingrich was an historian.  And yet saying that Mitt Romney, a Mormon, “has no understanding of the importance of conscience or the importance of religious liberty in this country,” may be one of the most historically ignorant statements made in this cycle.  A good deal of the religious liberty law that has been written or decided in this nation is a direct result of Mormons and their early practices.  I don’t think there is a religion in this nation that has more direct experience with religious liberty than the Mormons.

This nation now stands by silently while Islamic men practice polygamy in major urban centers.  Can you imagine what a different nation this would be if the same had been true for the Mormons practice?  The settling of the west and the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad would be very different and less consequential stories than they actually are.  Some historian.

And then, the “importance of conscience.”  Well, Newt Gingrich followed his own conscience into serial adultery – ’nuff said.

Should Florida come out as the polls predict and Romney wins, we will be able to consider Gingrich’s downward spiral into this sort of ignorant pathetic tripe pitiable, but humorous.  But for the next few hours at least it’s just wrong, nasty and ugly.

Lowell adds . . .

As to John’s comments above I’ll just note that in 2008 Mitt Romney shared the Canterbury Medal for religious freedom with Elie Wiesel and a few others.

The Canterbury Medal is the Becket Fund’s highest honor. It recognizes courage in the defense of religious liberty and is named for Canterbury Cathedral, where Thomas à Becket was martyred by the knights of King Henry II for his own defense of religious freedom. The Canterbury Medal is thus given annually to one “who has resolutely and publicly refused to render to Caesar that which is God’s.”

Gingrich’s criticism of Romney is absurd and embarrassing.  A “lack of concern for religious liberty?” Oh, please.
.

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Just a quick comment on John’s post below about the unfortunate Gawker report on Ann Romney’s late father.

So far we have avoided quoting what Gawker said, for fear of disseminating further what we consider to be sloppy, calloused journalism — at best. But there is more information now, and to put the sorry episode in full perspective, here’s what the author, John Cook, originally wrote:

Gawker’s substantial Mormon readership has come through for us: Two readers have sent us confirmation that Edward Davies, Mitt Romney’s militantly atheist father-in-law, was indeed posthumously converted to Mormonism by his family, despite the fact that when he was alive he regarded all religions as “hogwash.”

(Emphasis added.) My first thought on reading that was, “How does one describe the deceased father in-law of a presidential candidate as ‘militantly atheist’ based on anonymous sources?”

As John writes in another post below, the Gawker author was simply wrong. Today, Gawker was forced to correct its story in response to the following e-mail from Jim Davies, Ann Romney’s brother and Edward Davies’ son:

Mr. Denton,

I’m not sure about the law’s position on slander or libel vis a vis someone who is dead, but my father’s reputation matters a great deal to me, and your correspondent’s contention that my father was an atheist is blatantly false. I demand that the record be corrected and that you print a retraction. If you or someone would care to contact me on the issue I will be happy to give you the facts. Dad had faith in God, or a higher power, or something much bigger than himself, but saw organized religion as something man-made. Does that sound like a “committed atheist” or a “resolute atheist”? We had numerous conversations on the topic. I am truly astonished at the irresponsibility and callousness of your publication.

In addition to these inaccuracies, he worked on the Apollo program, not Gemini. There is so much conjecture and outright fantasy in these contentions, I am absolutely astonished. If I were this sloppy in my work as an ophthalmologist there is no way I could maintain a credible practice—or maintain a license to practice.

It is also beyond my comprehension (and I presume that you view your “Gawker” as a legitimate source for “news”) that your reporter would not even make the effort to make a phone call to confirm a story that is bound to get so much play in the media. Or, is it possible that you and yours are agenda-driven, and that your intent is to smear a candidate?

Mr. Cook, the author, seems quite defensive in his response:

My claim that [Edward Davies] was an atheist was based on the following:

• Earlier this month, the Telegraph reported that “Mr. Davies, who also served as mayor of the wealthy Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills, rebelled against his strict upbringing as a Welsh Congregationalist and became strongly opposed to all organized religion. ‘He would say: ‘I’m a scientist, show me the proof’,’ recalled [a former colleague].”
• In 2007, the Boston Globe quoted Edward’s son Roderick saying that “Dad considered people who were religious to be weak in the knees.” The Globe further reported that Edward had “absolutely no use for religion,” regarded it as “drudgery and hogwash,” and “insisted [that his wife] give up organized religion” before marrying her.

We will not belabor this further, except to note this: If these Telegraph and Globe reports are the evidence on which Mr. Cook relies, it is very difficult to see how he concludes that Edward Davies was “militantly atheist.” Agnostic, yes; but opposition to organized religion and a demand for scientific proof do not an atheist make. Maybe the type of writer who uses the term “voodoo” to describe the Mormon beliefs in question, as Mr. Cook also did in his Gawker piece, is also one who places a higher value on snarkiness than on fairness, accuracy, or decency. That seems to have been the case here.

John Says – A Mere Taste Of The Indecency To Come

Let’s look at just two paragraphs from the Gawker post, written before any corrections:

Of course this is all empty superstition, as Davies realized. Being dead, he wasn’t particularly in a place to care about whatever voodoo was performed in his name. But it’s an exceedingly odd way for the Romney family to honor the memory of a man who was committed, for his entire life, to the notion that organized religion is a fraud.

The Mormon church has repeatedly been criticized for its practice of trawling for dead souls to convert to the faith. Catholic and Jewish organizations have expressed outrage when the names of dead popes and Holocaust victims have turned up on Mormon lists of the baptized. In 1995, the church pledged to “discontinue any future baptisms of deceased Jews” except for direct descendents of living Mormons, tacitly acknowledging that its creepy and weird to claim the souls of people who had no interest in Mormonism for their own. It’s strange that the Romney and Davies families didn’t accord Edward Davies’ memory the same respect.

Consider the language in those paragraphs, “superstition,” “voodoo,” “odd way,” “trawling,” creepy,” “weird” and “strange.” These words lack simple respect.  Yesterday I talked about posthumous rituals bringing comfort to the survivors and said:

These stories stomp upon and ridicule a source of comfort to the still living members of the Davies clan.  There is nothing, and I mean NOTHING, “Christian” about such an action.  These stories are simply inhumane.  Most of the Mormon stuff written in this and the last campaign was wrong, but that is politics.  This particular line of inquiry is simply shameful.

That is frankly the most important consideration, but this words are disrespectful of religion generally.  What makes Mormonism “voodoo” and Catholic infant baptism “generally accepted practice?”  Well, there are only three choices.  One, you’re, say, Catholic and find Mormonism heretical.  We’ll get back to this in a minute.  Two, you believe all religion to be “voodoo.” Fair enough, but that also says if you are one of the people in the first category, you should be defending the Mormons because your practice is, in the eyes of the second category, just as “weird” as theirs.  At a minimum a person of a faith that finds Mormonism errant should temper their vocabulary out of simple decency. (Looks like some Catholics agree with me.)

But the third reason a person might make a “voodoo” type judgment is simple political expediency.  Now, political attacks of that sort are an indiscriminate weapon – once fired they are going to hit everything that remotely resembles the target.  (Taking us back to the second category.)  Then there is the fact that we on the Republican side of the aisle are suckers if we fall for this – such divisions only weaken us.

It’s this last category that tells us the most important political takeaway form this incident – it’s foreshadowing.  Look for the Obamaites to unleash a barrage of this kind of disrespectful, indiscriminate, indecent, and personally harmful attack.

This is going to get really ugly.

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