Article VI Blog

OK, not really the subject of this blog, but the humor flowing out of the “Obama ate dog” meme is just too good to ignore.  It’s everywhere and a lot of it is very good.  So, without further comment, please enjoy the cartoons that festoon this post.  I got them from my friend Rick.

Point, Counter-Point 1

Regulars will recall that on Tuesday we linked to a piece by McKay Coppins at Buzzfeed on how Mormon belief can feed the “War on Women” meme.  On Wednesday we linked and quoted Jennifer Rubin  writing in response to Coppins.  This exchance of articles resulted in an extensive Twitter exchange between the two that you can read here.  You’ll see the exchange ends with Lowell chiming in and pointing out that Coppins may have a point with this tweet:

This may be the way Dems will raise Mormon issue: not attack it, but say Mitt’s afraid to talk about it (thus making it sound spooky)

This is why I have felt all doctrinal/belief examination, for any religion is out-of-bounds in a political discussion, and why I objected initially to Coppins piece, accurate though it may have been.

Frankly, the examination of belief in a candidate (or an appointee for that matter – remember James Watt and all the discussion of dispensationalism?) is that at best it is about motive – it has the same problems that hate crime laws do.  Why is it any worse to beat someone up because you hate their ethnicity or sexual orientation than it is to beat them up because you drank too much and got stupid?   Either way you are guilty of assault and battery.

If Romney starts talking about what Mormons believe, or if a lot of Mormons start writing about what they believe (well more than they do in the normal course of being a church) or they start running around correcting every article that gets it wrong (trust me Mormon friends, the press doesn’t get what I believe any more correct than it does your beliefs) then Mormonism becomes the issue, not Romney’s stance on the political issue at hand.

What Coppins does not seem to realize is that HE, not Romney, not the Obama, not the Dems – but his article – made Mormonism the issue in “War on Women” discussion.  Will the Dems try and do what he suggests in his tweet?  Oh sure, but doing anything besides brushing it off with an, “Of course I don’t want to talk about it, what Mormons believe is not the issue here,” gives the Dems precisely what they want.

I know it is deep in the soul of every Mormon to have the world know what they believe and not the rumors, misstatements and misunderstandings that are so common.  That is a reasonable desire.  But a presidential campaign – particularly one with as much at stake as this one – is not the appropriate time nor place to make that necessary corrective.

Point, Counter-Point 2

Yesterday we pointed out the wretched statements of the Governor of Montana.  The wretch doubled down later in the day:

Lowell adds . . .

The Schweitzer attack is just the latest early manifestation of a pattern that I think will develop steadily, and which will continue as long as Democratic public figures can get away with it. It goes like this:

1. Prominent Democrat (officeholder or not) makes a sensational statement about Romney’s Mormonism.

2. News media covers the statement.

3. Blogosphere, Facebook and Twitterverse go crazy.

4. White House/Obama campaign distances itself from the statement (but does not denounce it).

5. We move on, waiting for the next bigotry eruption (“bigruption”).

This way the Obami get what they want: constant reinforcement of the “weirdness” meme, while maintaining a safe and somewhat sanctimonious distance.

Like all the other distraction strategies the Obama reelection campaign has tried, this one, although more annoying than most, is destined to fail. The president’s people are trying desperately to define Romney early, but Romney has shown that he responds firmly and with discipline. No anger, no outrage; he just comes back to the main issues. If the current pattern continues, pretty soon these surrogate bigruptions will look sad and ridiculous. What was it Abraham Lincoln said about fooling some of the people some of the time?

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There sure is a lot of Mormon talk given that the administration has promised not to make it an issue.  But then do they really need to?  They have the MSM to do it for them.  Sarah Pulliam Bailey asks:

Romney is Mormon: How many reminders do we need?

Apparently a lot if it will help Obama win reelection.  Remember yesterday when we looked at a call by Ralph Reed for Romney to “reach out?”  Well guess what, he is:

Mitt Romney, while ramping up efforts to win swing voters who will play a large role in November’s election, has remained personally involved in trying to persuade conservative leaders to back him and help drive Republican turnout this fall.

Just maybe not the conservatives Ralph Reed thinks he should.  Jacques Berlinerblau wrote a guest piece for WaPo giving Romney some advice on how to talk about religion:

Forget about those evangelicals who will never give you a fair shake:…And campaign hard among the evangelicals who will.

I think maybe that is exactly what is going on.  Tobin Grant at Christianity Today did a very standard “Will Evangelicals…?” piece airing both positive and negative voices on the issue.  I am growing tired of such pieces.  They say nothing really. “On the one hand…on the other….”  The essential question is who will win most of the votes?  Because “evangelical” is a self-applied label and means so many things to so many people in the final exit polls it is likely to line up in accordance with general populace voting patterns, which is why the Berlinerblau idea is the important one.

Yesterday we saw race emerging as the new “code” for Mormon.  Brad Hirschfeld sees a similar code emerging in the “secrecy” meme as we did yesterday.  Said Hirschfeld:

The White House has consistently insisted that it would not make religion an issue in the presidential race, but with questions such as those raised by Axelrod, you have to wonder. Given the concerns expressed by large numbers of Americans about the Mormon faith and the LDS church, questions about what Romney “believes” and “what he stands for,” easily pass for thinly veiled references to the candidate’s faith.

“The ‘secrecy’ charge is particularly damaging for Romney because it is a clever way for Obama to exploit some Americans’ discomfort with Romney’s Mormon faith without ever raising the issue directly,” wrote Post columnist Marc A. Thiessen Monday.

Given the ongoing concerns expressed by Obama supporters about criticisms directed at the president which are little more than thinly veiled race-baiting, the Obama campaign needs to be especially cautious about this kind of talk. They need to be better disciplined when raising issues which they fully appreciate have the very real potential of pandering to the worst kind of anti-Mormon bias, especially given the ugly way in which some of the president’s detractors continue to question the his faith in baseless ways which pander to American haters of Islam.

Interesting, and threatening – He who lives by can indeed die by.

Someone has finally seen yet another “code” that I thought was in play but did not want to be the first one to name it and start the furor:

Ann Romney was already fully immersed in stay-at-home motherhood — raising five sons, ages six to 16, in her Belmont home — when Mormon prophet Ezra Taft Benson took to a pulpit on February 22, 1987 and delivered a definitive sermon on gender roles in the church titled, “To the Mothers of Zion.”

His message to working moms: “Come home.”

Yep, don’t kid yourselves, the entire “War on Women,” “Mommy Wars” meme is a disguised discussion about religion.  This is one of those places where Mormons and Evangelicals line up like peas in a pod.  You simply cannot say it is OK to attack Mormons like this, but it is not OK to attack Evangelicals on the same lines.  We need to be standing together.

There is also efforts to develop the “trust” code.  But Obama asking us to trust him after all the misdirection and jam down he has engaged in during is administration is a non-starter.  There may be a lot of people suspicious about Romney and his faith, but Obama is a KNOWN quantity.

Which brings me back to yesterday’s “open up about Mormonism” trap.  At Commentary, Seth Mandel points out that the article was self contradictory and concludes:

The best argument I can think of in favor of opening up the Mormon issue is that Democrats, as indicated by Axelrod, will attempt to portray the religion in the most negative light possible. It’s not just Axelrod. Columnists at the New York Times have joined the anti-Mormon campaign almost as soon as they heard Axelrod’s starter pistol. Maureen Dowd joined the fray, but of greater concern was Charles Blow’s anti-Mormon insult on Twitter directed at the candidate himself. Blow later offered a tweet that was about as close to an apology that Mormons were going to get out of him, and he did not lose his perch at the Times–a signal that unlike other prejudices, anti-Mormon bigotry is not a firing offense and will be tolerated at the New York Times. (It will also be tolerated, perhaps unsurprisingly, by MSNBC.)

The best antidote to this may be the familiarity with voters that all presidential candidates attain in the age of long campaigns, 24-hour news networks, and ubiquitous social media. Or it may be for the Mormon community to do its best to counter the Democrats’ campaign against the religion. But now faced with trying to win Democratic votes against an incumbent Democratic president, it may still be perilous for Romney to raise the issue himself.

The rigors of the campaign will do a lot, but Mandel is very right about the Mormon community.  Political leadership is more reflective than it is magnetic.  That is to say, it does not so much guide people as it gets in front of them when they are already headed in a direction.  A great Mormon leader, political or spiritual, is not going to radically change public perception of Mormonism.  Individual Mormons are the only ones that can do that.  Over the back fence, in the grocery store, at the gym, in attendance of school functions – These are the places where those perceptions will change, and only individual Mormons can be in all those places.

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I wonder if some people understand how they play into the political oppositions hands?  Today brought us a story about how Evangelicals and Catholics can work together:

Despite differences over contraception, evangelical leaders have fallen in step with Catholic bishops over what they see as federal compulsion to provide services against their conscience.

[...]

Evangelicals including Chuck Colson, Albert Mohler, and Jim Daly specifically said the issue was not just a Catholic one. While evangelicals do not take the same stance against all contraception, they generally oppose forms of birth control that block uterine implantation.

And yet, one of the biggest names in Evangelical leadership, Ralph Reed, tells us:

But Santorum and his supporters may have the last laugh. From John C. Fremont to William Jennings Bryan in the 19th century to Barry Goldwater, Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern and Ronald Reagan in our time, losing presidential candidates have previewed the ideological trajectory of their parties — and often of the nation.

Romney would be wise to remember this in his general-election campaign. Of course he can’t neglect independents, or women, or Hispanics, or other nontraditional Republican constituencies. But his immediate task is to consolidate conservative support and unify the party. The best way to do that is to appropriate the best parts of Santorum’s message.

So, rather than follow the lead of the party, like Evangelicals are doing on the contraception issue with Catholic leadership, they are telling the WINNER that he has to move towards them.  In other words, they are emphasizing the divide inside the party at the time when the clear message is to come together.  Reed is absolutely right when he says the immediate task is to “unify the party,” but given that Evangelicals, in the form of their designated candidate Rick Santorum, are the LOSERS is not the onus on them to make concessions to party unity?

And so, into this picture steps Team Obama and their more-then-willing allies in the MSM.  First we turn our attention to Marc Thiessen at WaPo:

Mitt Romney handed President Obama a political gift this weekend, when his campaign announced that he would not file his tax return on time. Romney made the announcement at 5 p.m. on Friday — the time politicians usually put out bad news they hope no one will notice. Team Obama noticed all right. The president took a break from the Summit of the Americas in Colombia to criticize Romney’s lack of transparency, while Obama campaign manager Jim Messina declared that it “begs the question — what does he have to hide?”

[...]

The “secrecy” charge is particularly damaging for Romney because it is a clever way for Obama to exploit some Americans’ discomfort with Romney’s Mormon faith without ever raising the issue directly. Recall the outcry last August when a senior Obama adviser declared their intention to highlight the “weirdness factor with Romney.” Team Obama knows many Americans see Mormonism as a “secretive” religion. Calling Romney a “secretive” candidate is a way to tap into those fears without incurring any political blowback.

Now. lay on that Lois Romano’s Politico piece of early this morning:

Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith has hovered over his 20-year political career like a thick layer of incense at Easter Mass. Negative perceptions of the religion so worried his 2008 presidential team that the dilemma had its own acronym in campaign power point presentations: TMT (That Mormon Thing).

Worries persisted this year as skeptical evangelical Christians flocked to other candidates—any other candidate it seemed — causing Romney to avoid all things Mormon in public.

But now that the former Massachusetts governor is the likely GOP nominee, many Republicans think that the standoffish candidate actually needs to embrace his Mormonism publicly to open a window into his life.

So, the left are telling Romney he has to tell everybody about his Mormonism.

On all the issues that matter, Romney is socially conservative.  There is no reason whatsoever to be “suspicious” of whether Romney is a “real conservative” save for suspicions about his faith.   And yet the Evangelical right continues to insist that he prove his sincerity – a fact which can only be seen to mean he has to be somehow “less Mormon” (more like Santorum.)  It’s like the Evangelicals, in their petulance, swung for the fences when a base hit or sacrifice is what is called for .

Social issues are simply not in the issue set for this campaign.  To stand up and argue social issues would be to talk about stuff that just does not matter this cycle.  Time spent talking about stuff that does not matter in an election cycle is time spent losing that election.  Talking social issues, and especially talking religious identity, is giving the left bait with which to set traps.  Therefore it is time to be quiet and step up to the plate and make the sacrifice.  Santorum’s amazing performance makes it a spectacular sacrifice fly, but it is still a sacrifice – an effort to advance the runner if not bring him home.

The alternative is four more years of Obama; therefore, unalterably changing the nature of our nation.  I like our nation just the way it is, as does every conservative regardless of their particular brand of conservatism.

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Larry O’Donnell apologized:

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Here’s the background, and the follow-up.  (We had a couple of other follow-ups on people attempting to defend O’Donnell and related bigotries that resulted, but this is about O’Donnell.)  Essentially he apologizes for “inaccuracies” but remains on the attack at Romney.  Some are trying to brush this incident off with a good face, but O’Donnell, and many others, miss the primary point.

He says that he was making a point that Romney was bigoted about secularists, he even plays a clip of Romney.  Romney was engaged in a debate about the role of religion or irreligion in the public square. O’Donnell, even had he been accurate in his discussion of Mormon history, was engaged in an effort to squelch religion.  There is a big difference that seems to completely escape O’Donnell.

Apology accepted as far as it goes, but this is not over.

Mormons are afraid of what is to come?  Prov 27:17 – Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. (NAS) ‘Nuff Said.

This is rich irony – NPR, yes THAT NPR, with a piece entitled “How To Rally The Base, And Other Advice For Romney From Former Foes.”  The piece is not bad really, I just could not stop laughing when I saw it.

Let us close with a quote from Peggy Noonan’s look at lessons learned from the primary:

Evangelicals are an ever-dominant part of the base, but they don’t march in lockstep. Like all huge blocs they encompass all levels of affluence, education, attainment and aspiration. But one thing was clear this year: The old evangelical reserve, or animosity, toward Catholics is dead. It was the Mormon who carried the Catholic vote. The Catholic Mr. Santorum drew evangelical Protestants. America is great in part because it’s always scrambling its categories and changing its clichés.

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You are going to read, and if you are reading hard have already read, lots of stuff about religion in the general election now upon us.  Most of it does not matter.

For example, the religious label you choose to apply to each candidate will not matter in the end.  How you report about it will.  For example, the same man, in two separate interviews about faith seems to say Romney has a faith problem and he does not.  Of course, we do not know what questions were asked and what part of the interviews was not discussed in the two pieces.  What we do know if we read carefully is that whatever faith problem exists, it is more about the press than the electorate.  Don’t just read the headlines and the ledes, read what Richard Land is actually saying.

It’s not about those few remaining people that claim they still have a problem with Romney.  Sore losers are sore losers.  It’s not about “Mormon moments” and JFK.  In the end, Catholic life was unchanged after JFK was elected, sure there was a psychological uplift, but what it meant to be a Catholic and Catholic life in general was far more changed by Vatican II at roughly the same time than it was by an election for POTUS.

It may have far more to do with race than anyone in the country is willing to admit, but not is the way most people would have us think.  The problem is not what the LDS church believed or said 30-40 years ago, the problem is race will be used as a club, if not heavy artillery.  Things that happened before a good deal of the electorate was born will be used to raise guilt, if not wielded as direct reverse-racism.  And that brings me to the real issue.

Karl Rove in this mornings WSJ:

Rick Santorum’s decision Tuesday to suspend his campaign effectively ends the GOP nomination fight. But it doesn’t mark the start of the general election between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. That contest has long been under way. Mr. Obama’s speech to the Associated Press last week and two appearances in Florida on Tuesday provide a glimpse of the low road the president and his campaign likely will take.

He will distort beyond recognition his opponent’s arguments. For example, he explained to news executives at the AP that Republicans want to “convert more of our investments in education and research and health care into tax cuts—especially for the wealthy.” Actually, no one has suggested that.

No honest differences are possible with Mr. Obama. He will impugn the motives of any who disagree with him. As he told the AP, his opponents want to “let businesses pollute more and treat workers and consumers with impunity.” His agenda “isn’t a partisan feeling . . . [it]isn’t a Democratic or Republican idea. It’s patriotism.” To disagree with him is unpatriotic. That’s to be expected from Republicans, whom Mr. Obama says stand for “thinly veiled social Darwinism . . . [that is] antithetical to our entire history.”

Mr. Obama will build entire edifices on top of one fake premise, all dressed up in one big phony assumption.

Distortions…falsehoods…outright lies, this is the stuff of the Obama campaign.  Yesterday already saw an attempt not merely to argue, but to impugn the lifestyle of millions of American women.  This stuff will be personal, nasty, ugly, and angering.  It’s all part of “the Chicago way:”

The question facing those of us of faith is how do we respond?  If we take our faith seriously, whatever particularly brand it may be, we simply cannot crawl in the gutter with Obama.  That does not mean we are not strong, we are in fact stronger.   When he pulls a knife, we do pull a gun but we do so not in anger or revenge instead with purpose and intent.

We do not lie, we stick to the facts.  There is no need to engage in personal vindictive nor impugn the character of our opponent.  The facts speak for themselves.  We may have to shout to gain attention, but once we have that attention we return to a reasonable tone of voice.

We occupy the moral high ground and we cannot be driven from it by lies, innuendo and gutter tactics – we can only concede it by resorting to same.  We face a terrible battle, and we will have to fight very, very hard.  In this battle we will wound many of our opposition; such is not a sin.  But if we do so to be vindictive, if we resort to lies, then our opponent, though wounded will have won the exchange.

The campaign ahead will be a test of our faith.  To some extent it will be a test of our faith in the public square.  But more importantly it will be a test of our personal faith.  It will be the kind of test that will build our character to new heights if we submit to it.  It is going to be an interesting seven or eight months.

They can also be a fruitful months on many levels.

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On NBC’s Easter Sunday edition of Meet the Press there was an extended discussion of the role of religion in the 2012 presidential election cycle.  Here’s the transcript of the April 8 program. Participants were:

• Democratic Congressman of Missouri and United Methodist Pastor Emanuel Cleaver
• Daughter of the Reverend Billy Graham, Anne Graham Lotz
• Bishop William Lori, archbishop designate of Baltimore
• Jon Meacham, executive editor of Random House and author of American Gospel, God, the Founding Fathers and the Making of a Nation
• Raul Labrador, Republican Congressman Idaho and “a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon Church.”

Of course The Question came up. The key transcript excerpts, with emphasis language bolded:

DAVID GREGORY:

All right. I’m gonna come back to this expectation of faith and– and– among our leaders in a moment. But Congressman Labrador, let me get you into this. We– we are on the precipice of– of an historic moment– for Mormons in this country. And that is that Mitt Romney is a Mormon. And somebody was– you know, very significant role in the church looks like he’s going to become the republican nominee.

And– Congress Cleaver talked about the need to take religion off the ballot. But here you had Orrin Hatch from Utah– Senator Utah– saying that the Obama administration– the campaign is gonna throw the Mormon Church at Mitt Romney and make this an issue. Do you agree with that and how would he do that?

REP. RAUL LABRADOR:

I think the media is gonna do that– for– for the Obama campaign…. everyone in– in politics is gonna have some sort of role– i– is gonna be influenced by their faith whether it’s Emanuel by his faith, whether it’s me by my faith. And I think we can’t talk about having– s– politics void of any religious faith because then what you’re saying is you have– you’re asking people to not be who they are.

DAVID GREGORY:

But I’m asking you about this very specific charge. You have the– senior Senator from Utah saying that the Mormon Church is gonna be thrown at the republican nominee who is a Mormon. In what way? And you just said you think the media’ll do it. I mean, let’s talk–

(OVERTALK)

DAVID GREGORY:

–about what– what you mean.

REP. RAUL LABRADOR:

–you– you look at your own network. MSNBC, you have Lawrence O’Donnell, it’s– just saying some really nasty things about the Mormon religion, about the founding– of– of our religion. That it was based on– on some guy just waking up some morning and deciding that he– that he wanted– that he had– an extramarital affair and that– that– that’s how the r– religion was founded.

There– there’s some really nasty things already being said by– by your own network, by NBC. There’s– there’s many other people that are gonna be talking about these things. And … what we need to realize is that everybody’s faith origins are– are peculiar i– if you look at any one of– of– of us.

And we need to realize that what you need to look at is the man– the man, Mitt Romney. I have endorsed Mitt Romney. But it clearly looks like he’s gonna be the nominee– for– for the republican party. We need to look at his life and the things that he has done. And he’s had– a very, very good life….

DAVID GREGORY:

All right, but you– you’re arguing– Archbishop [William Lori], you’re arguing still this issue of contraception and the Obama administration’s rule which they, of course, would argue w– there’s an exception provided for and an accommodation– provided for that the insurance would pay for it directly.

But rather than go down that road which I– I don’t think will convince you, I wanna stay on this sort of broader question– Congressman Cleaver, which is in the case of Mitt Romney– but more generally, about someone’s faith– as a person of faith that Romney is and as a Mormon, it’s the core of who he is.

As a missionary for two years, as somebody who was a bishop in the church which is the– correct me Congressman, I’m wrong– the equivalent of being– a priest because it’s lay-led. Very close association with the church. He doesn’t really talk about what guides him so powerfully. Isn’t it fair for both scrutiny, questions– because there’s so much ignorance about the Mormon faith– but also to understand the man, to understand his religious journey.

REP. EMANUEL CLEAVER:

Well– look, I– I think all of us– who claims some kinda connection to religion– and– and if we are in government, we are informed by that region. And we are in many instances regulated by it. We don’t have to make an announcement– every day and– and– and go out and wave a flag.

It comes out of our (UNINTEL). And, you know– but I have to talk about it. When I was Mayor of Kansas City we had– a– our church opposed– the Methodist Church opposed gaming. I said from the very beginning if– if I’m going to do what my church says, then I shoulda campaigned on the Me– as– as a Methodist running for– for mayor. I did not.

And so therefore– I– eventually signed– that into law. I– I’m– I’m not gonna vote for– Governor Romney. But I am more concerned about– Washington’s religion of confusionism than I am Governor Romney’s religion about the– Mormonism. So I– I– I think w– we gotta stop this. It’s not healthy for the nation. We’ve com– completely forgotten article six, paragraph three– which says there shall be no religious test. And I think we got to try to prevent our country from doing that (FOREIGN LANGUAGE NOT TRANSCRIBED)–

(OVERTALK)

DAVID GREGORY:

I understand that. But we live in the real world here. And evangelicals– which you are one– are deeply suspicious of Mormons and the Mormon faith and do not consider them to be Christian. To– you– you– and you have– p– the– the likelihood now of a Mormon republican nominee– is there not an opportunity for more national understanding and more of a discussion about the Mormon faith when you have the standard bearer of one of our two major political parties of that shape?

ANNE GRAHAM LOTZ:

I– I– there will be. But– but when you just– addressed him and said that out of your deep conviction, you know, that– that what drives him– what’s the powerful force that drives him, then I think you can learn by seeing what he has done, through his policies, his decision and– and how he has conducted his life.

So that’s some– you can learn from that something of how his religion drives him. And I think rather than discussing all the religion– and I’m not into religion. And I– I know that will be a discussion. And I would look to talk about Easter morning at some point this morning because this is our day. And– but– but your– your religion i– puts on the– the table is the policies.

You know, the– the f– the decisions, what’s– the– the social pol– the– driving this nation right now. So I think it’s not the discussion of religion is almost a smoke screen and a diversion from the real issue. And that’s the policies. And there’s a clearer choice I think this fall between the way the nation’s going to be led. And that’s what I think we ought to be looking at. Not so much as– as– as at the religions preference of a particular person.

DAVID GREGORY:

President– President Kennedy– even though is a speech that causes Senator Santorum– stomach problems– in 1960 gave a marvelous statement of this– on exactly this point, that he was not the Catholic candidate for president, he was the democratic candidate for president.

And voters can make a judgment on the whole person, the whole policy. But I don’t think to the Congressman’s point– I don’t think we want presidents sitting around discussing subs– substitutionary atonement. You know, we don’t want people– I think– discussing– there’s enough for presidents to do without having them worrying about the theologies of different religions.

REP. RAUL LABRADOR:

And– and the reality is that religion informs your thinking. But l– look at– in the United States right now, Orrin Hatch and Harry Reid are both member of the LDS faith. You can’t find any two more opposite individuals. So even though it’s gonna inform who you are– and they’re both faithful members of the church.

So you can– can’t find any two more opposite people, two people who have different– philosophies and– and political doctrines. So I think w– we– it’s important to know a little bit about Mitt Romney and his religion. But I think it’s more important– I– like I said before, I have not endorsed Mitt Romney. I have not decided– I– I’m not gonna go out and endorse him. But I think he’s gonna be the candidate. And I do believe it’s time for republicans to get around– to get behind him because we know he’s gonna be a candidate. It’s time to beat Obama.

DAVID GREGORY:

But Congressman, let me–

REP. RAUL LABRADOR:

But–

DAVID GREGORY:

–ask you one more about your specific faith. And I wanna show you a poll done by Quinnipiac– over the summer. Would you feel uncomfortable with a Mormon president– the number of republicans 29% say yes. Democrats 46%. I– I come back to this question–

(OVERTALK)

REP. RAUL LABRADOR:

–the most biased people are the democrats.

DAVID GREGORY:

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–well, I mean, that poll is– is– but– but it– but let me ask you that. I mean, I– unlike Christianity– a lot of people say the difficulty that– that Mormons have is that the– the– the religion is relatively new and therefore– for critics can be debunked more easily or attempted to be debunked– is there room for Governor Romney to take some of these issues on? Not to– get engaged in a doctrinaire discussion of the Mormon faith– but to take some of these issues on because there are questions and there are– there is discomfort?

REP. RAUL LABRADOR:

Well, he should talk about who he is and– and– and what formed him. And I think he discusses missionary work. I was a missionary for two years in South America. My son– my oldest son is now a missionary in South America. It’s one of the most formative things that you can do in your life.

It– it– it– it informs who you are for the rest of your life. I think he could talk about that. He could relate to the people that he has t– taught as– a– as a bishop. He was a bishop and a stake (?) president in the church which means that he actually dealt with a lot of different issues dealing with poverty and other issues. He should talk about that a little bit more. But if you want– I mean, you shouldn’t be getting into the theology because there’s– th– every church has a different dogma, a different– teaching. And we’re not– you– we shouldn’t be judging a– as Emanuel just said– we shouldn’t be judging. Our constitution tells us that we shouldn’t be having religious tests.

(OVERTALK)

DAVID GREGORY:

Right. Let me take a quick break here. We’ll continue this discussion on the other side of it. More from our round table on this Easter morning discussion after this.

Thanks Lowell!

…For researching that conversation.  There are a couple of notables and they have to do mostly with David Gregory.  Firstly, when Congressman Labrador challenges Gregory on Lawrence O’Donnell’s nasty bigotry (see the video here) – broadcast on a network affiliated with Gregory’s own, Gregory is completely unresponsive.  Not even a dismissive, “Well, that’s Larry, he’s a little, you know….”  Are we supposed to take this as a sign that NBC will tolerate such bigotry on their networks?  The lack of any ramifications for O’Donnell to date would indicate as such.

But that is not the major point I want to make in this post.  Glen Johnson at the Boston Globe picked up on the big issue:

Representative Raul Labrador of Idaho predicted Sunday that the press would make Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith a major issue in the Republican front-runner’s expected general election contest with President Obama.

Romney’s religion was on the table Easter Sunday during religion-themed political talk shows, including NBC’s “Meet the Press,” where Labrador was a guest.

Such is evident in the conversation itself, David Gregory just keep insisting and insisting, despite his panelists protests.  We linked yesterday to a Carl Cannon piece at RealClearReligion taking Gregory to task for some his saying that Romney was “afraid” to talk about his faith on Leno in a promotional appearance before the weekend.  Clearly Gregory went into Sunday’s show intending to force the issue.

Bear in mind, we just spent a good portion of yesterday afternoon arguing with some guy at Salon who was attempting to justify mockery of Romney’s faith.

Then there was this piece that appeared on RealClearReligion yesterday afternoon:

Now that the GOP presidential campaign is pivoting from internal competition to the race for November, it is past time for Mitt Romney to address relevant questions about his religion.

[...]

Romney should now be prepared to answer some questions that he has thus far deflected or ignored. Just last week, he was attacked by a guy at a town hall meeting about a racist but now-reversed aspect of Mormon theology. (Until 1978, blacks could not be ordained into the Mormon priesthood and interracial marriages were discouraged.) Romney cut him off.

Later he said: “This gentleman wanted to talk about the doctrines of my religion. I’ll talk about the practices of my faith.”

Which is almost fair enough. The “almost” is about those doctrines that deal with aspects of worldly life in which the government may have some role. How have those doctrines helped shape (or not) Romney’s policy positions on such matters?

As a parallel example, see: “Catholic Church” and “contraception, abortion and birth control.” Rick Santorum, famously a Catholic, has made the nexus of his faith and his policy positions pretty clear — both the influences and the limits of how doctrine has shaped his politics.

What utter nonsense!  Again, as we saw yesterday, Santorum making stands based on his faith does not mean that every candidate must answer for their individual faiths.  The author of the RCR piece, Jeffrey Weiss, then goes on to list seven questions Romney should answer about Mormonism.  The thing is downright McCarthyite – “Do you believe that the proletariat controls the means of production? – Are you a communist sir!?” – Relax Mr. Weiss, Romney’s stance on every one of the issues you raise is public information.  No candidate in history has been asked to trace their stance on an issue to their religious convictions, and to do so simply tramples on any reasonable understanding of not just religious freedom, but freedom generally.  There is nothing legitimate in this line of thought – it’s disgusting.

But what we do see in the preamble to Weiss’s disgusting inquiries is yet another attempt by the press to justify asking about, researching, and discussing Romney’s religion.  That is three times in 24 hours that the press has whined and whined about wanting an opportunity to discuss Mormonism.

Is it just because they are pro-Obama?  That the media are pro-Obama cannot be doubted.  But I wonder if it is not a bit deeper.  On one of the other Sunday shows, Face the Nation, Cardinal Dolan appeared:

In an interview on CBS Sunday, Cardinal Dolan called the Obama administration’s mandate on contraceptive coverage a “radical intrusion of a government bureaucracy.” He continued, saying, “Our problem is the government is intruding into the life of faith and in the church that they shouldn’t be doing.”

The press’ desire to discuss Romney’s religion is in support not just of Obama, but of his “signature achievement,” which disguised as healthcare reform, puts the government intrusively into our worship centers.  Obama may have put the camel’s nose in the tent, but the press is clearly the rest of the camel.

In yesterday’s argument, our opposite number made it apparent that  Mormonism is not specifically at issue other than as a stand in for all “silly” religion.  There is far more at stake than just the next presidential election – perhaps the most important in my lifetime.  Certainly reasonable respect for religion, if not religious freedom itself is at stake.  It seems plain that our understanding of ourselves as a nation is in play here – something very fundamental.

I, for one, like the America I have grown up in.

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