Amid all the post-Romney candidacy analysis, I find most interesting the notion that Romney was “too perfect” to be president.  That is  because, the argument goes, he lives up to high personal standards, by all accounts, and seems extraordinarily successful and fortunate, both in business and in his personal life.  On the day Eliot Spitzer resigned because of his, well, imperfect personal life, that notion seems especially fascinating.

Libby Copeland of the Washington Post is the latest to express the “too perfect” view:

Romney seemed so Mormon, so squeaky clean. His seeming normalcy isn’t the norm anymore. Maybe we understand better those who’ve strayed or failed and recovered — or, for that matter, those who aren’t fabulously successful and can’t put tens of millions into their own campaigns. Maybe we relate to the family lives of other candidates, candidates who have been divorced, who have blended families, whose children don’t all campaign with them (and may not even like them). Sure, they’re messier, but messy is authentic.

“Messy is authentic.” What an interesting way to express the difference between the real and the ideal. In other words, we like what is real because it seems familiar and comfortable to us and doesn’t make us feel inadequate, doesn’t challenge us to aspire to something better. (But wait, I thought Obama’s slogan of “Change” was what people found so inspiring about him. Maybe that’s because he’s talking about changing government, which is appealing, and not about changing ourselves, which is not.)

Now compare Ms. Copeland’s view, which seems to prevail in the MSM, with that of Kathryn Jean Lopez at National Review Online:

What a breath of fresh air the Romneys on the public stage have been. Way too often in pop culture, men are portrayed as dopes; think about just about any sitcom. The dad/husband is portrayed as a doofus. What’s wrong with having somebody in public life who’s like Mitt Romney — a capable, experienced executive who loves his country and also happens to be a God-fearing father and husband? That’s not a bad thing for Americans to see. Forgive him for being easy on the eyes.

And I’ll go one step further. I worry about a political culture that is a little too suspicious of a scandal-less, all-American-gee-whiz-this-is-the-American-dream-in-overdrive package. We should be glad that good people — who, while well-off, are not without their share of painful crosses — are willing to subject themselves to the ugliness that politics can inflict. We should be grateful that good families will make the sacrifices necessary to serve — and make those sacrifices with no guarantees they’ll succeed.

I agree with K-Lo. Let’s hear it for our political class setting a standard to which the rest of us can all aspire.

John comments:  What a sad commentary it is when we want leaders “just like us” - meaning “just as screwed up as I am.”  I also find it cognitively dissonant with the idea that the election is about “change.”  I am reminded of high school class elections that were essentially “social group showdowns,” you know, jocks vs. nerds, stuff like that.

Frankly, what Copeland expresses is identity politics in another guise - only in some ways much worse.  Instead of based on some identity group – that group being hopefully attached to some higher idea – this is pure identity, and negative identity to boot. 

I also think this is Democrat politics as well - think about it, all their candidates lately come rife with extensive personal problems, thus we see the governor of NY resigning just this morning, and the foibles of the Clintons have been worked out in public for a couple fo decades now.  Then there is Obama’s historical drug use.  All this when guys like Evan Bayh, fairly liberal Democrat to be sure, but decent, moral and honorable human being, is relegated to second fiddle status.  Do we really want to be like the Democrats?
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One of the primary jobs we have had on this blog is to seek and highlight instances of anti-Mormon sentiment and bigotry throughout the Romney campaign. It is very real and it was very effective, and it was wrong. Lowell and I both acknowledge that is was a factor in the campaign. There will be much work for this blog in the future trying to get, as best we can with our limited and non-academic resources, a handle as to how big and how effective a factor it was.

But there is also an important question about how to move things forward from here. One of the things that I am most concerned about both for my Evangelical brethren and my Mormon friends is relegating ourselves to separate, but equally isolated political “ghettos.”

Frankly, I think the perceived ghettoization of Evangelicals goes a long way to explain Huckabee and I fear that too much emphasis on “Mitt lost because he was a Mormon” runs the risk of creating a similar self-fulfilling perception for Mormons who are just now in the process of moving out of an actual imposed ghetto - The Jello Belt. I think this accounts for the difference in viewpoint and emphasis that Lowell and I bring to the question we have been discussing.

To give this a complete view I want to look at three basic concerns: 1) Blacks and The Self-Fulfilling Ghetto; 2) The Perceived Evangelical Ghetto, and 3) The Potential Mormon Ghetto

Blacks and The Self-Fulfilling Ghetto

I recently heard Los Angeles Talk Radio Host Larry Elder discuss his new book with Sean Hannity. His book is entitled “Stupid Black Men: How To Play The Race Card - and Lose.” Here is the Amazon description:

Radio host and bestselling author Larry Elder has made a career out of being a thorn-in-the-side of the conventional wisdom crowd. He deflates the pompous and points out the completely logical truths hidden behind the nutty rhetoric and out-of-control pandering of many of the politicians and so-called leaders of a variety of special interest groups. In Stupid Black Men, he takes on the mind-set that always captures the most media attention—as well as masses of public money—in this country: those who rail against racism as the root of all problems, and who end up hurting precisely those they claim to be helping.

His sometimes hilarious and always infuriating examples of wrong-headedness skewer not just politicians for their smugness and hypocrisy, but also actors, educators, religious leaders and the “mainscream media” for keeping the story in the headlines.

But Elder has a positive message, too: though they are fewer—and generally not as loud-mouthed—there are leaders and role models today who want to sweep away race-based whining and urge everyone in America, to share in the hard work, smart thinking and optimism that make this country great. [Emphasis added.]

The fact of the matter is that for blacks a continued reliance on the politics of race has kept them segregated and denied them the piece of the American Dream they deserve because they demand it rather than earn it. There was a time when blacks were denied even the opportunity to earn, but that time is past.

This is the thing about America - everything is earned. As a democracy we removed the hereditary right to rule - you must earn your place in leadership in this nation. We cannot produce equality of result, we can only produce equality if opportunity, this means we must earn the rest.

Which brings me to . . .

The Perceived Evangelical Ghetto

In the early days of blogging, God bloggers often complained of existing in a “blogging ghetto.” By that they meant they all read each other, but none of them ever broke out an became the next High Hewitt or Instapundit, or Michelle Malkin, or…. That very sentiment carried with it the presumption that someone should have broken out. I never understood the complaint, to be frank.

Christianity Today has no where near the circulation of Time or Newsweek. It never will - it can’t - because it has a specific identity and exists in that niche, and that niche is of limited size. The newsweeklies exist in a much larger niche and therefore have a larger circulation.

The problem is simple, when all you do is hang around with people who are like you and talk about stuff only you all are interested in, you create a ghetto. Is that ghetto imposed on you? Not really, its just that no one else cares about what you care about so much. In such a circumstance you have two choices, really. One start talking about other things so that more and other people will want to join the conversation, or somehow change other people so they want to talk about what you are talking about.

In the case of evangelical political activity, tough as it is to believe, not everyone is as strident on abortion and defense of marriage as we are. We are abortion absolutists, most people are not, they want limits, but not banishment. So, how do we get out of this political ghetto? Well, we can expand our interests to join the rest of the party and thus, by virtue of joining the conversation, be better heard (provided we make our arguments in language other than the language of our ghetto), or we can evangelize the world to be Christians so they think the same as we do. In actuality the answer is probably some of both, but that is not my point. My point is that we stay in the ghetto by virtue of our behavior, by clinging to our evangelical identity above all else.

Mike Huckabee has not helped in this regard at all. His protestations nothwithstanding, - he can even try to play the victim but - Huckabee played to the ghetto. His supporters in many cases were even worse. The problem is exacerbated by how many of us there are. Just enough to have influence, but not enough to carry the day. Huckabee with his cries of “establishment” played to the perception of the ghetto and did so in a way that encouraged us to remain in it rather than break out of it. (Not to mention his getting personal gain from it as we languished.)

Through all this, we not find ourselves at best wallflowers, if not outside of the dance altogether. Evangelicals have to make some choices. We have to broaden our message or we will be stuck in the ghetto, powerless and taken for granted, exactly what Huck claimed to want to save us from.

The Potential Mormon Ghetto

Mormons historically had ghetto imposed on them through persecution, but they have spent the last 130 years or so trying to move back into the mainstream of America. Mormon are idiosyncratic, but then as Martin Marty points out, aren’t we all. There is little doubt that those idiosyncracies were used to trigger old resentments and that hurt the Romney campaign in some places and with some people. The question, as we have said over and over and over, is how many people, how effectively?

Well, in one sense, the answer makes no difference.  If people keep claiming that it was all about Romney’s faith, like this student, or this newspaper, or this magazine (even with contrary opinion in the mag’s blog) then the Mormons run the risk of a new, but still self-imposed, ghetto such as blacks have built a whole culture upon, and Evangelicals now risk doing the same.

As when this all started, Evangelicals and Mormons find themselves with far more in common than they have differences. Their political effectiveness at serious risk.

What To Do?

Look at the Larry Elder book blurb above again - What is Elder’s advice to blacks:

…sweep away race-based whining and urge everyone in America, to share in the hard work, smart thinking and optimism that make this country great. [Emphasis added.]

That is, I think good advice for Mormons and Evangelicals.

What we need to do is to grow more sophisticated - to learn better how to do politics. We need to develop a message that appeals to the majority of the American people, but we need to develop it with out giving up our distinctives, our idiosyncracies, or our uniqueness. We can do this. Thomas Sowell or Larry Elder or Ward Connerly did not stop being black when they joined the mainstream of American political and cultural thought; the only people that think so are those who are afraid to leave the ghetto.

We can remain abortion absolutists, for example, but we must be open-minded enough to accept limits as a step in the right direction. But we can only take even those steps if we leave our ghettos and join the party. We are going to be stuck in our ghettos if we keep pointing fingers at each other and naming names. But we can leave our ghettos together by finding our common ground.

This is the reason I am unwilling to grant that the elephant to which Lowell refers is “huge.” If I think that, then I think it is too big to move and I have to stay stuck here in this ghetto. I am not interested in that. I am interested in either moving it out of the way or walking around it. I don’t want to focus on the elephant, I want to focus on the end of the journey.

Lowell adds:  I hesitate to tread on John’s well-written and thoughtful post, which I agree with almost 100%, but this seems the best place to contribute (I hope) to the discussion.

I still think the elephant is huge, but as John correctly observes, what’s really important is what we do about it.  For Mormons, the teachings of our church could not be clearer.  Here are excerpts from a letter read in every Mormon sacrament meeting (the main meeting of the Sunday worship services) in the United States:

“We wish to reiterate the divine counsel that members ‘should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness’ (D&C 58:27) while using gospel principles as a guide and while cooperating with other like-minded individuals. . . .

“Therefore, as in the past, we urge members of the Church to be full participants in political, governmental, and community affairs. Members of the Church are under special obligations to seek out and then uphold those leaders who are wise, good, and honest (see D&C 98:10).

“Thus, we strongly urge men and women to be willing to serve on school boards, city and county councils and commissions, state legislatures, and other high offices of either election or appointment, including involvement in the political party of their choice.

“While the Church does not endorse political candidates, platforms, or parties, members are counseled to study the candidates carefully and vote for those individuals they believe will act with integrity and in ways conducive to good communities and good government. Hence, political candidates are asked not to imply that their candidacy is endorsed by the Church or its leaders.

“As always, Church facilities may not be used for political purposes, nor Church directories or mailing lists.”

I have been hearing almost those same words regularly all my adult life.  It seems to me that for Mormons to retreat in to the “ghetto” mentality to which John refers is contrary to the teachings and beliefs of our church.  So John’s counsel (in Larry Elder’s words, to “sweep away . . . whining and urge everyone in America, to share in the hard work, smart thinking and optimism that make this country great”) describe exactly what Mormons should be doing.  I can’t see any reason why Evangelicals should not be doing the same thing. 

At the same time, there are clearly Evangelicals in this country who don’t want to see Mormons serving on “school boards, city and county councils and commissions, state legislatures, and other high offices of either election or appointment.” I don’t know what Mormons can do about that except keep trying, and keep extending the hand of friendship and common cause to those who may disagree with us on religious matters.  Evangelicals have some work to do on increasing their brethren’s willingness to accept those efforts.
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We wrote yesterday of working hard not to let the MSM write “the simple narrative” to the Romney campaign, and particularly the religion angle. And yet the SLTrib started to paint it in entirely religious terms almost immediately, which Lowell addressed well last night. And other events are breaking that do not help much.

Conspiracy theories are born of events, often unrelated, but which can be strung together to create a picture of sinister intent. In light of the desire of people to paint a simple narrative on this whole thing, I think James Dobson has fed a conspiracy theory for years to come with his endorsement last night of Huckabee. I think this may haunt Evangelicals:

In a statement first obtained by The Associated Press, Dobson revisited his declaration on Super Tuesday that he could not in good conscience vote for John McCain, the front-runner, because of concerns over the Arizona senator’s conservative credentials.

Dobson said given the situation at that point, he was reluctant to choose between “two pro-family candidates whom I could support” - Huckabee and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

But Dobson wrote that Romney’s announcement Thursday that he was suspending his campaign “changed the political landscape.”

Now, I believe Dobson here. I do not know the man personally, but I know people that do, and I do not think he is capable of the deception or misdirection that would be necessary to pull off the obvious conspiracy theory that will flow out of this. My interpretation of this is that James Dobson is extremely firm in his commitment to social conservatives issues, that he backs those issues at the expense of virtually anything else, and that he is politically naive.

But my convictions on this notwithstanding, the appearance, which will be used by many to establish a narrative, is just awful.

Let’s start here, with this piece in the American Thinker:

The US has always had far too many varieties of faith and non-faith for any religion to gain a majority. That is why Huckabee’s faith-baiting didn’t play in most of the country, and it is also why his support will not expand far beyond the Bible Belt.

The “faith-baiting” refers to Huckabee’s anti-Mormon “aside” to the NYTimes just before Iowa. There is a lot of truth to that quote. Which means that by endorsing Huck, Dobson has pretty much squandered his endorsement. His conscience may have demanded same, but given that his lack of support for McCain was already well known from his Monday statement, not to mention his very early statements and their context, would not an endorsement of Huckabee been implicit after Romney’s withdrawal? And would have allowing it to stay implicit not have avoided the appearance of a conspiracy?

The possible theory is simple. Dobson’s Monday anti-McCain declaration could be read, and certainly was read by some out of their own anti-Mormon bias, as an encouragement to vote for Huck. It will be interesting to see - I hope someone polls this - how much of an effect Dobson’s Monday declaration had in Huck’s Super Tuesday southern sweep. To come out with this Huck endorsement mere hours after Romney’s withdrawal makes it all appear very strategic. You just know someone is going to try and connect the dots, and with the MSM poised on the religion question, and wanting to simplify things, they may be active participants is such conspiratorial theorizing.

When you also examine the actions of the Dobson-allied FRC, releasing key staffers to the Huckabee campaign just long enough to help with Iowa and rob Romney of momentum, one can construct a very plausible “Stop the Mormon” scenario.

With Mormon disappointment and anger at the levels it is right now, I am surprised the charge has not already been leveled. With so many creedal Christians out there floating outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the Mormons; it is a testament to Mormon patience and forbearing that they have not struck back in a similar fashion.

None Of This Helps Any Of Us…

Now, here is the bottom line. We are fighting liberal, secularist tendencies in the nation. Something Evangelicals, creedal Christians in general and Mormons share in common. Given that common cause, it makes no sense whatsoever to divide the forces - particularly when Romney is out. What possible political good can come from deepening the divide in an already divided political camp? The Mormon vote is significant and important to social conservative causes (see the American Thinker quote above) - driving an additional nail in an already sealed coffin can only serve as a big enormous, “Get out of my face and leave me alone.” And thus we Evangelicals lose potentially 6 million allied Mormon votes; votes we desperately need - particularly in a McCain lead party.

The chief charge of the left against us, as religious voters, is that we are small-minded, irrational, and easily led. These moves add to that appearance, supplying ammunition to our genuine political foe. It makes us appear more interested in our petty inter-religious squabbles than fighting for the things that matter and can be affected on the national stage. Likely innocence of intent notwithstanding, it also makes us appear devious and untrustworthy.

The social conservative wing of the Republican party is hurting right now, and this move opens the wound wider. BIG MISTAKE.

Saturday Morning Addition:   The WSJ looks at Dobson’s move in almost purely political terms and makes some pretty stark statements:

But for the network of socially conservative activists who are now such a large part of the Republican Party, this is also an instructive moment. They have to decide if they care more about achieving their policy goals than they do about being kingmakers within the GOP.

They then go on to make a very convincing case that McCain is the best bet at this point for pro-life concerns.  I’d like to rephrase this pullquote just a bit - What Evangelicals need to learn at this juncture is that it is more important to do politics well, advancing you particular concerns, NOT play identity games.  The WSJ argument is in many ways, the same one I made on Monday, save adjusting the math to compensate for Romney’s withdrawal.  *Sigh*
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The MSM Narrative…

The movie The Big Chill contains one of my more favorite movie quotes. Jeff Goldblum plays a writer for People magazine and by the end of the film he decides to quit, saying he is “tired of writing stories which can be read in the duration of the average crap,” or a very close approximation thereof. As I review the MSM coverage of Super Tuesday, that seems a most apt description of MSM writing in general.

They want to describe the results in simple terms, which includes a straightforward religion-based narrative. Consider the coverage from the Boston Globe and Alabama.com. But then they also want to establish a simple identity-based narrative for the Democratic primary as well. They are even trying to establish it going forward.

But like any story, things are much more complex than these stories let on. There is a lot of emotion roiling out there and there is a temptation in the face of it to say things that are not smart. Buying into these simple narratives would be one of them. Certainly these things are true to some extent and with some people, but that far from makes it true for the nation as a whole.

The fact of the matter is, Romney is staying in. If we buy these narratives, that means war. If we think, and reason, that becomes an opportunity to building a coalition, and for healing what are clearly damaged relations between Mormons and Evangelicals. If we want to make any progress on the political goals that we clearly hold in common, we have got to achieve that coalition.

The Mormon View of All This (from Lowell)

Well, at least it’s this Mormon’s view. I want to write about the “damaged relations between Mormons and Evangelicals” to which John refers. After very late night last night (I was actually a guest on Irish Public Radio, certainly a first for me), I’m a little too low on energy to do a long post. I’ll look at this from three perspectives.

1. The surprised Mormon.

I am convinced that my own experience, as the Romney candidacy has unfolded, has been shared by most of my fellow Latter-day Saints. We have been genuinely surprised by the reactions to the Governor’s run. We did not expect Al Mohler to agonize publicly over whether he could, as “a matter of Christian discipleship,” justify voting for a Mormon. We did not see Huckabee’s question, “Don’t Mormons believe Jesus and Satan are brothers?” coming, and we were stunned when it did. (The outrage came later.) The Iowa outcome caught most of us flat-footed too.

This group saw these developments “in sorrow more than anger.” We received an e-mail from a reader that expresses that reaction well:

I am LDS and I wanted to chime in. I remember a time, maybe in the early summer, when the Mormon question was a bigger issue. Huckabee was asked a number of times when he was polling at 1% whether Romney’s religion was relevant or not. This was a time, in my opinion, where he could have been a real leader and denounced bigotry in general. Instead he stayed mum and said things like ‘of course religion influences me’, and so forth. He had an opportunity to bring tolerance and acceptance.

What if he would have said: “We wont compromise our doctrines, but we need each other in this war for values, and we should be proud to work together.” [Ed.: That’s what Romney was saying then and has always said.] Something like this would have strengthened the cause of social conservatism much more than what he chose to do instead: He chose to use religion as a weapon. He used religion and values voters to drive a wedge, and in my opinion set back the conservative values movement a long way.

George Bush won with evangelicals AND Mormons and others of faith and values, and even then only narrowly. Now, there is a divide. I still believe in conservative principles but I will never support a ticket with Huckabee anywhere close to it. I was hoping that this election could have brought about more acceptance and a greater desire to work together. Sadly it didn’t happen. . . . Who is going to bring harmony to the values movement? Bush at least paid respect. I am not sad that Romney lost. I am sad that the movement of faith and values lost and it seems like our collective influence has been marginalized.

I can attest that our reader has a lot of company among LDS folk.

2. The offended Mormon.

A good friend of mine is a long-time Republican activist and was a presidential appointee during the current Bush administration. He and I were talking at the time of the “Jesus and Satan are brothers” brouhaha. In exasperation, he said something like this to me, referring to Evangelicals who were either critical of, or hesitant about, Romney based on his Mormonism:

I’m done with these people. Mormons have become the blacks of the Republican party. The religious right is happy to take our money, our volunteer time, and definitely our votes, but they don’t want us to have a place at the table. Sure, we can serve in Congress, but we’d better not get uppity enough to run for president. Well, now that I know how they feel, they’re getting nothing from me.

I don’t share my friend’s view, but I certainly understand it. I must say, it’s tragic and totally unnecessary that this has occurred, but people are people.

Mormons (including Mitt Romney) did not come into this election looking for a fight. We have always voted for a candidate of another faith; that’s just normal life to us. The idea of not voting for a presidential candidate because he’s a Baptist or a Methodist or a Catholic is simply foreign to us. (Hence the “surprised Mormons” described above.)

John breaks in for a moment: At the risk of offending Lowell’s friend, which is not my intention, consider the quote “I’m done with these people…” To my LDS friends, please note how that sounds just as intolerant and small minded as the less-than-charitable of my creedal brethren. To my creedal Christian brethren, do we want to be such exasperating souls? Is that really what you think our faith guides us to?

Back to Lowell:

Clarification: In fairness to my friend, by “these people” he meant religious conservatives who make an issue of a politician’s Mormon faith but still want the political help of the poltician’s co-religionists. He wasn’t divorcing himself from Evangelicals.

3. The bridge-building Mormon.

I aspire to membership in this group. My sense is that I have a lot of company. We of this bunch are dismayed at what has happened but, consistent with our faith’s general attitude, we seek out people of good will and high moral standards with whom we can make common cause in civic matters.

It’s significant, in that regard, that the new president of our church, Thomas S. Monson, said this on the day his selection was announced:

Responding to a reporter’s question about the Church’s openness in working with other churches and groups, President Monson said: “We should not be sequestered in a little cage. We should eliminate the weakness of the one standing alone and substitute it with the strength of working together to make this a better world.”

That’s a very, very familiar teaching to me, as a Mormon; I’ve been hearing it all my life.

There are far too few voters who care about families and marriage and protecting youth from the rot of our continually coarsening and secularizing society. We cannot afford to fragment ourselves.

It would help us all if the candidates would echo that theme. I think Romney has been doing that. John McCain does not care about social issues much, but he could do the Republican Party, and the base whose support he needs, a great service by:

• Denouncing religious bigotry and the abuse of identity politics.
  
• Picking up the phone and calling his ally Huckabee and insisting that Huck do the same thing.
• If McCain gets the nomination, pointedly involving Romney in his campaign and announcing, before the election, that he will invite both Romney and Huckabee to have a significant role in a McCain administration, and that he expects there to be no sectarian divisions in his team.

Now that would be leadership. Let’s see if we get something close to it.

Back to John, and the real MSM Agenda . . .

Which is to weaken the voice of religion in the nation and its politics. Consider:

• Evangelicals Still in Flux After Super Tuesday
• Reach of evangelicals, talk radio tested

I still fear greatly for the religious voice in politics and if we let these narratives hold, we are damaged.

If you think about it, it’s really funny.

You know, sometimes the insults go so far over the edge that you have to laugh. For example, consider this web site from publicity hog Bill Keller. Yes, the banner is ugly, but look at it! Come on - that rises to the level of self-parody. Don’t you think Keller makes a fool of himself here? - it looks like something SNL would do.

And then this blog post is the mother of all conspiracy theories. Once again, self-parody and comedy.

Relax and laugh a little.
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Oh, the horror!

Jonathan Martin has taken religion-focused political reporting to an absurd level. He actually took the time to report this:

For the second time in three days, a pair of Mormon missionaries came out for a Mitt Romney rally in Florida.

Apparently a couple of those young men in white shirts and ties dropped by a Romney rally to watch. Will the Republic survive?

Martin apparently decided this was so important that he should ask Romney about it:

Asked if he was comfortable with the presence of missionaries at his campaign events, Romney curtly dismissed the question.

“This is America, I guess people can go wherever they’d like to go,” he said at a press conference earlier this evening in St. Petersburg. “I don’t have any comment on that.”

It is remarkable, as always, that Romney must be subjected to this utter nonsense. I wonder if any pastors showed up at Huckabee rallies? Or if a rabbi ever came to a Joe Lieberman rally? Would that be something to ask the candidates about?

Give us a break, Jonathan.
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In the cool, calm light of morning, after reflecting on the matter and on some intelligent comments from our readers, I want to offer a few more thoughts about yesterday’s excitement (which, for the uninitiated, is available for all to see in my original post and our correction post).

First and most important, I got it wrong and accused Brian Williams, or someone within NBC doing his staff work, of “borderline mendacity,” or coming awfully close to lying, if not lying outright. For that, I simply apologize.

Usually an apology all by itself is all that’s called for in these situations. But since a lot of people, including Hugh Hewitt, relied on my questioning of Williams and NBC, I think further explanation is called for. It’s useful to me, and perhaps interesting to you, to know the origins of yesterday’s posts. Besides, maybe other bloggers will learn from my experience.

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