The Heritage Foundation’s Rory Cooper tweeted that Obama had casually dropped his own name into Ronald Reagan’s official biography on www.whitehouse.gov, claiming credit for taking up the mantle of Reagan’s tax reform advocacy with his “Buffett Rule” gimmick. My first thought was, he must be joking. But he wasn’t—it turns out Obama has added bullet points bragging about his own accomplishments to the biographical sketches of every single U.S. president since Calvin Coolidge (except, for some reason, Gerald Ford).

He goes on to provide numerous examples.  They are breathtakingly self-important. Said Phillip Klein:

Obviously, as president, Obama can use the tools of the White House to advance his goals. But at the same time, all presidents are to some extent guardians of the institution. Sure, a lot of the White House website is naturally going to be used to promote Obama, but there are some areas that should be considered neutral ground — one of them being the history sections. White House presidential biographies are the type of thing that school kids read and they should be able to do so without being bombarded by propaganda for whoever is in power.

That’s very true, but that is putting it mildly.  Jim Geraghty in this morning’s newsletter is quick to point out:

No, what this illuminates is not Obama’s thinking – as much as we might suspect this sort of thing — but the thinking, mood, and atmosphere within the White House. Which may be even more worrisome, really; how likely is it that a staff and cabinet that reveres him as a Munificent Sun-God is likely to dissuade him when he’s on the wrong course?

How true, and the other thing that occurred to me is how incredibly immature the whole thing is.  Of course, the vast majority of adults left the Obama administration very quickly.  (Remember all those resignations?).

This whole episode should be distasteful to virtually anyone that bothers to pay attention.  And it reminds me of the fact that regardless of theological belief, the Bible contains a lot of smart things.  Things like:

1 Cor 14:20 – Brethren, do not be children in your thinking; yet in evil be babes, but in your thinking be mature.

Gal 5:13 – For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

I know that in my household if you had to try and put a finger on the one thing that makes Obama and his administration so unlikable, its not policy as wrong as that is.  Wrong policy is a fact of American life.  No, the one thing is the immaturity, arrogance and self-aggrandizement of this president and his administration.

Service, humility and maturity are indeed religious values, but more they are American values.  Values that have made the nation great.  They run deeper than even values about life and marriage.  These character traits are the things that have, more than anything else, made America a Judeo-Christian nation.  Further, a nation that welcomes any faith that holds those same values dear.  I think we were beginning to take them for granted.  No More.

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Two pieces reacting to the events of last week have set me to thinking.  The first is by David French:

I must confess that I awoke this Monday morning feeling a bit useless — feeling very small and insignificant in fact.  Not that it’s a bad thing.  After all, in this graduation season if I could give one piece of advice to young and ambitious graduates it would be this: “Learn to get over yourself — and quickly.”  But still, it’s not necessarily fun to feel insignificant.

Why did I feel like blowing off work, skipping even my shower, and just heading straight to my favorite video game to tune out the world?  Because last week Barack Obama accomplished more in about two minutes and thirteen seconds than I was able to accomplish in more than six years of continual effort.  Barack Obama united evangelicals and Mormons around Mitt Romney.

Boy, I know how that feels.  The second piece was by Hugh Hewitt:

Romney’s use of the capital “W” underscored his shared conviction with the vast majority of Americans that there is a God, and with the strong majority who believe God has communicated quite clearly on matters of right and wrong. “Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God” is the shortest summary of that set of directions.

The debate over how those directions ought to be worked out in civil society and a democratic republic goes on every day, and the large debate over the definition of marriage is one part of that back-and-forth. So too is the question of how long we ought to stay in Afghanistan, how much support we ought to give to our democratic ally Israel against the totalitarian regimes that threaten it, and how much money it is right to take from hardworking people to support those who do not work and special interests that want their projects paid for at taxpayers’ expense.

There was even some piling on as Jen Rubin chimed in by penning a faux letter from the Romney’s to the editors of Newsweek:

But really, to characterize the president as the first “gay president” was an unexpected joy for Ann, the boys and me. I’m not about to go stoking the flames of anti-gay fervor in my base. That’s not my style, and as I always say to Ann, a moment not talking about Obama’s economic bellyflop is a moment wasted. But you’ve done it for me! Why, I don’t suppose there is a social conservative activist in the country who wouldn’t toss his cookies (excuse my language) over that label. They tell me they are fired up and ready to go! It’s very important in business and government to delegate, so I am relieved that you and your other journalist friends have taken care of this for me. (Do you have Hilary Rosen’s snail mail address? We’ve been remiss in not sending her some flowers.)

But, oh God bless you both, to define the president by a rhetorical, meaningless gesture is really above and beyond anything we expected. The “recovery” president or the “jobs” president would, well, be silly, I guess. But so long as he’s carving an identity on an issue that ranks somewhere below “high speed trains” among voters’ priorities I’m just tickled to death.

I do happen to think that last week will prove to be a pivot point in this campaign and I do think it is squarely in Romney’s direction.  Last week was incredibly politically risky for the Dems.  They knew that Romney’s speech at Liberty would be the point where he pulled out all the stops to unite the social conservative base behind him, and the needed to counter it.  One must ask why this very risky maneuver was the counter move.  Why are articles like this appearing when the subject has clearly changed?

Well, for one thing, Obama’s religious credentials are completely shot.  Did you know that one of Obama’s supporters apparently offered Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, money to stop preaching during the last election cycle? We drew a line on this blog last cycle.  Wright’s religious statements were off limits; however, Wright did have a penchant for making political statements in religious contexts.  But that said, it is clear that religion means little, actually nothing, to a man that is willing to pay money to squelch it.

Another reason for the risk is worldview.  The Atlantic had a piece over the weekend on, “The Most Radical Social Experiment in Modern History.”  In her book on the Great Depression, “The Forgotten Man,” Amity Shlaes talks about FDR’s fondness for “experimentation.”  Societies are not laboratories – to experiment upon them is to show an amazing disregard for the members of the society.  We consider it evil in our society to conduct direct medical experimentation on people, but apparently, at least to one group, indirect social experimentation is just fine, despite the fact the consequences can be just as dramatic and life-changing.  (Argue about where life starts all you want, legalization of abortion has fundamentally changed our society, and the lives of the people in it, in ways that are not yet fully documented, and I defy anyone to prove me wrong about that.)

But I think the real reason for the enormous political risks we saw last week was true believer-ism.  That which the right is so often accused of is no less evident on the left.  Despite extreme accommodation in the form of civil unions, the LGBT community is not satisfied because they believe, with all possible conviction, that they are RIGHT!  Obama is going along because he simply needs all the help he can get – he is out of options.

Those of us on the conservative side of things believe in the rightness of our stance as well, and we have the evidence of history to back us up.  But we also have one other thing the left does not.  Well, at least we should if the lessons of our faith have truly taken hold – we have humility.  The kind of humility that causes us to question even the deepest of our convictions when those around us examine them.  The kind of humility that is willing to make accommodation, even in light of our convictions and historical evidence.

Lack of humility is what leads to war.  It is the difference  between our faith and the faith of Islamic terrorists.  Last week’s battle, and its evident lack of humility contains the seeds of something very ugly.  I pray we can get through this intact.  Certainly Romney’s Liberty U speech gives me hope, but I am not sure everyone was listening.

Let’s end this with a laugh…

Veiled Mormon reference just for female tweens?

And this landed in my inbox as I was writing – I cannot resist -

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

They may not know it yet, but the man who spoke at Liberty University is the man Evangelicals have awaited. He was honest, he was plain, he was a gentleman. He did not pretend to agree with the theology of the Liberty University audience, but the crowd there knows their Bible and they know that a God who can anoint the Persian Cyrus can find his man any place.

And Romney, or at least his speech writer, was on point. He did not fall for the latest shiny distraction of the Obama campaign, but laid out the essential differences. Romney stands with Liberty for the future. There is no future in adopting ancient decadence sped up with technology. There is no victory in growing angry and merely reacting with the slogans of past campaigns.

Some media did not understand his message. They wanted the Governor to fixate on one issue, but Romney is not a hater. He is an American,  so he is happy to see people left alone, but unwilling to change the Constitution and our heritage lightly or because of one generation’s claims. Romney likes Christian morality.

Many Americans have seen the future President Obama has painted and have decided: “No thank you.” Governor Romney suggested an alternate view at Liberty and the forty-six percent that voted for John McCain will be behind him with a large chunk of the middle that gave the President a chance.

Decent men will not lightly abandon a good man like President Obama, but a majority will vote him out of office if he fails. Romney is pressing the case that he is failing. Americans develop dispositions based on the economy, but they vote their consciences.

The economy has made them surly, but Romney refused to play to their fears. At Liberty, he appealed to the better angels within us.

Mitt Romney only needs Evangelicals to come home, moderates to trust him, and the base to give him a chance. Mitt Romney in Lynchburg showed the capacity to do all three. He  did not ignore difference, but stressed common ground with the vast Evangelical plurality. He is a moderate man by nature and expressed his views without rancor and he appealed to the grandness of the Grand Old Party.

He tied economic progress to moral decency. A rich, but wicked Babylon is no fit place for republicans. A poor, but virtuous nation cannot defend herself in a dangerous world.

This man will win. Count on it. This weekend made Mitt Romney the next President of the United States . . . if he can repeat the Lynchburg mantra: a decent America works.

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

The News Media’s Bully Pulpit

If you were reading the left-leaning/MSM press, the story was “bullying.”  Here’s the standard kind of stuff I saw.  Bottom line is this: the story is fabricated at least in part, if not in whole.  Both Breitbart and ABC have put significant portions of it to the test and come up blank.  I speculated last Thursday that the energy behind the story was the LGBT community striking back at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for its role in Prop 8.  It would now appear that said energy has extended beyond the bounds of simply repeating a story that does not really bear repeating and has wandered into journalistic excess, certainly, if not an outright breach of ethics.

This does not bode well for Obama’s Biden-prodded jump onto the LGBT agenda train last week.  Should that community, already associated with violence after the passage of Prop 8, become associated with lying, Obama’s support of their agenda will taint him as well.  Can he really afford a distraction that associates him with deception and violence?  Not that his reputation is that good to begin with, but….

Lowell adds . . . What Does That Liberty University Speech Mean, Anyway?

If you were reading the less agenda-driven news media the dominant story was Romney’s commencement address at Liberty University. (Video here; official text here.)

The Washington Post’s story emphasized, bizarrely, Romney’s decision not to mention his own faith during the speech:

Although Romney spoke of common spiritual values, he did not discuss his personal faith. The candidate who is poised to make history as the first Mormon to win a major party’s presidential nomination made no reference to his Mormonism.

CBS News made the same observation, as did ABC News.  (Others probably did too, but I stopped looking after seeing what these three MSM icons had done.)

I wonder if any of these MSM writers took the time to research whether any prior commencement speaker at Liberty University had ever discussed his own personal religion during his or her remarks. After a few Google clicks I learned that past Liberty commencement speakers have included:

Presidents George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, Billy Graham, Newt Gingrich, Chuck Norris, Ben Stein and Glenn Beck [Beck is also a Mormon - Ed.] Liberty’s commencement speakers have represented almost every faith and have even included some with no known religious affiliation at all.

I haven’t taken the time to research whether, during their commencement remarks, Ben Stein discussed Judaism or Glenn Beck discussed Mormonism.  I doubt the Post, CBS, and ABC writers above did that research either.

The Christian Science Monitor, reporting wide and enthusiastic Evangelical approval for Romney’s speech, concluded that “by all accounts he said just the right things needed to nail down this critical segment of his conservative base.”

Reflecting, perhaps, a more hard-bitten view of the event, McKay Coppins of Buzzfeed saw the speech much differently.  During the speech itself, Coppins tweeted:

In the story of Mormonism, speech Romney just gave at Liberty was a historic moment. The highest-profile attempt yet to bridge rival faiths.

In his Buzzfeed story, however, Coppins focuses on the naysayers he found among those in attendance. He concludes:

For the thousands of conservative Evangelicals on campus Saturday who reject the candidate’s claim to Christianity, Romney may represent a compromise: They’re voting for him because they can’t do better.

But other news media reporters gleaned much friendlier reactions from the crowd.

“I was holding my breath when they announced him,” [Liberty graduate Jacob Pearce] told ABC News. “I was just hoping there weren’t any ‘boos.’”

Pearce’s fear — which was not realized here today — was shared by many of his classmates, more than a dozen of whom were interviewed by ABC News. Most, like Pearce, had resoundingly positive things to say about Romney’s address, regardless of their pre-event jitters.

Many shared concerns that their classmates wouldn’t be respectful of the politician’s Mormon faith, the values of which differ greatly from those of many of the students enrolled at the evangelical university.

“I was worried he was going to get a bad reception,” Pearce said. “But it was really good. [Romney] steers away from really specific religious things.”

Here’s the bottom line:  Romney’s speech at Liberty was a triumph.  I have watched the entire address.  Do the same yourself and see if you agree.  From Mark Demoss’s heartfelt introduction and Jerry Falwell Jr.’s remarks to the Governor’s words there was not a false note.  Yes, there will always be a minority of Evangelicals (and others, of various faiths) who cannot abide the idea of voting for a Mormon.  We’ve always known that.  Nothing Romney can do, including the Liberty address, will change that.  But the great majority of people in that demographic group will have no problem supporting him.  After yesterday, they’ll feel better than ever about that choice.

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

And just in case there is any doubt in your mind that the media spins and then spins again, let us look at tow stories covering polling released yesterday that shows Romney pretty well commands the evangelical vote at this point.

From the Atlantic:

Romney Doesn’t Need to Sweat the Evangelical Vote

From the LATimes:

Poll: Romney behind Bush, McCain in evangelical support

It sure is a good thing the press in this country is objective, isn’t it?

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Mitt Romney returned from a three-week spring break in 1965 to resume his studies as a high school senior at the prestigious Cranbrook School. Back on the handsome campus, studded with Tudor brick buildings and manicured fields, he spotted something he thought did not belong at a school where the boys wore ties and carried briefcases. John Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.

“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemann’s recollection. Mitt, the teenaged son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Lauber’s look, Friedemann recalled.

A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.

and a few pages later:

But Friedemann and several people closest to Romney in those formative years say there was a sharp edge to him. In an English class, Gary Hummel, who was a closeted gay student at the time, recalled that his efforts to speak out in class were punctuated with Romney shouting, “Atta girl!” In the culture of that time and place, that was not entirely out of the norm. Hummel recalled some teachers using similar language.

And there you have it – Romney painted as bully, and specifically a bully that aims himself at homosexuals.

“Anti-bullying” campaigns have been springing up all over the nation in the last few years, and I have wondered if they weren’t just a new cover for the homosexual agenda.  This seems to make it transparently so.  Make no mistake, behind the development of this “Romney as bully” narrative is anti-Mormon fervor – a grudge that has been nursed and coddled and matured to incredibly vile levels within the LGBT community since the passage, with significant help from the Mormon community, of Prop 8 in California.

I personally think it is a huge mistake for Obama to dance this dance with this constituency - the man has plenty of skeletons in his youthful closet; one’s that involve actually illegalities and self-admission.  Reports of the Romney events are however, hearsay at best.  (“While the Post reports White as having “long been bothered” by the haircutting incident,” he told ABC News he was not present for the prank,….)  Daniel Foster said at the Corner:

It reminded me that I spent my youth first getting incessantly picked on — mostly fatso stuff, but also some nerd stuff and poor kid stuff — and then, as soon as I got physically strong and clever enough, returning the favor with gusto. (I recall middle school in rural Florida mostly as a series of fistfights of mixed result.) It wasn’t until sometime later in high school that the question of how to be a Man, much less a Good Man, even occurred to me, and I’m still trying to sort out the answer.

The point is that kids — especially teenage boys — are %#&!s. If we’re to be judged by the people we were at 14, then I’m doomed. I don’t suspect I’m alone, either.

My point would be that is Obama is to be forgiven his rather extensive drug use, then what is the big deal here.

But let’s examine this for what it really is.  For Team Obama this is a much needed distraction.  For the LGBT community this is an opportunity to paint religion, and especially the Mormon faith, not just as wrong, but evil.

As I said this morning:

Obama cannot talk about the economy, national security or foreign policy.  In those places he is a known loser – there is his entire administration to date to prove it.  Social issues are all he has, and he knows they are Romney’s weak point.

Obama welcomes any opportunity to talk about anything other than his record.  The more he can make this election about anything besides those big three, the economy, national security, and foreign policy, the better off he will be.  That’s just politics, but what is truly said is that he is willing to sacrifice religion to that effect.  Such reminds me the the separation of church and state was devised more to save religion from the state than vice versa.  Obama seems more than willing to throw church under the bus; not for his agenda (given how fast and complete his turn has been on this issue how can he be represented as having an agenda at all?) but for his mere reelection.

Because I do not tread such places readily, I do not know what the left-wing blogosphere is saying, but I am fairly certain that they are saying Romney was prone to such things because  of the teachings of his faith, and if they are not, they will soon enough.  It has long been a meme of the left that religion, being so “intractable” inevitably leads to conflict.  And yet, in the wake of the passage of Prop 8, it was the LGBT incarnation of the left that took to violence in the form of vandalism committed on Mormon houses of worship, the ruination of businesses via boycott, and threats upon the life and safety of leaders of the pro-Prop 8 forces.

It appears these stories concerning Romney’s youth are true, if suspiciously and conveniently timed, but they are due to the misjudgement of youth, not the workings of his faith.  We all made mistakes in our youth, some worse than others, but we share this in common.  Religion does not cause such mistakes, but rather helps us overcome them.  Hence the pro-Prop 8 forces used civil argument and the ballot box to win the day and those in opposition took to the streets.

Religion is a force for good in our society.

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

My initial reaction reaction, like that of Dan Gilgoff, was that all it really did was seal the deal between Romney and social cons; which at first blush is a loser.  There is increasing evidence that those that opposed him so vehemently in the primary are rallying.  This move seems to provide impetus to the rally.

Karl @ Hot Air sees this move as right in line with the Obama strategy:

What yesterday’s elections may have told Team Obama is that the bitter clingers out there are bitter enough to give 41% of the Democrat vote in West Virginia to a convicted felon and to ease a ban on same-sex marriage into the North Carolina constitution. They may have concluded that their energies are better spent targeting more socially liberal white college graduates in the suburbs of northern Virginia, Philadeplphia, Denver, etc. than wasting time on trying to persuade Rust Belt Jacksonians to pull the lever for Barack Obama again while (as Allahpundit suggests) considering discontent among socially conservative African-Americans an acceptable risk now. The establishment’s mockery of Obama’s unevolved position may have suggested to Team Obama that painting Mitt Romney as a right-wing extremist is made more difficult when the president shares Romney’s position on SSM.

There is some sense there – it’s a move to build separation.  But on an issue that is a loser virtually every time it is put directly to the people, like just happened in North Carolina?  Well, yeah, when that is all you have.

Obama cannot talk about the economy, national security or foreign policy.  In those places he is a known loser – there is his entire administration to date to prove it.  Social issues are all he has, and he knows they are Romney’s weak point.  Have we forgotten Stephanoupolis’ obvious briefing from the White House on contraception pre-debate in a clear effort to put social issues on the table in the primary and help Santorum over Romney?

It should also be remembered that Prop 8 branded same-sex marriage as a “Mormon” issue and this is a subtle reminder to the electorate that his opponent is a member in good standing of that particular church.  Not to mention that his base is so incensed over Prop 8 that they resorted to violence in the wake of its passage aimed specifically at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

There are still a lot of people out there that want to make an issue out of Romney’s faith.

There is also the fact early on that Obama said he would not mind being a one-term president if it aided his policies in the long run.  Maybe he has figured out he is doomed and thrown all caution to the wind in order to retire to a life of liberal stardom – which will make him some cash.

One thing is for sure, yesterday is a marker in the election.  It may not have been won or lost, but it was most certainly defined.  Obama has now abandoned all pretext of moderation.  That dear friends is the ultimate flip-flop given how he ran last time.

Closing With An “I Told You So”

I said on Saturday that Tagg Romney’s children by surrogacy would be an issue in some circles.  I was right.  Given that Obama is trying to put the election on social issues, this will grow.

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

It’s not that Richard Lugar is a bad man; it’s just that you should be able to accomplish what you came to do in Washington within thirty-six years or so. You can’t be a reformer of Washington in your seventh term.

Dick Lugar never was a “reformer, ” he was just effective.  As the piece we linked announcing the loss said:

By and large Lugar’s voting record has been conservative, but he has often worked with Democrats…

One has to remember, Indiana is the same place that kept Birch Bayh(D) in the Senate for darn near forever, and his son Evan had the same opportunity, but took an early exit.  Though a red state, Indiana is not traditionally averse to Democrats.  Working with them was, until this year I guess, kind of a matter of survival.

Purity drives can only lead to two places – stalemate as both sides square off and nothing happens – or grossly wide policy swings that leave the nation unstable from election to election.  It’s too early to tell what, if anything, is happening right now but it is worth keeping an eye on.  Reform is a very good and currently necessary thing, unless it is the kind of reform we have been subject to in the Obama administration – reform by fiat, legislative trickery and brute force.  In our efforts to reverse the tide this administration has established we must take great care not to resort to the same brutish tactics they have used.  If we do, our republic may truly be lost.

But what I really want to do here is honor Dick Lugar for his years of service.  As a tribute, Geraghty linked to a 2002 Michael Crowley piece that discussed Lugar’s failed 1996 presidential campaign:

His grimacing, mechanical approach to primary-state retail politics made Steve Forbes look like Warren Beatty. Stating the obvious during the campaign, he told one reporter, “I’ve never purported to be an entertainer or performer or a bon vivant.” His candidacy was instead based on that perennially losing theme of technocratic mastery.

I think Lugar underestimated himself.  He taught me the first lesson in retail politics I ever received.  He was still mayor of Indianapolis, but his first Senate race was a foregone conclusion and his presidential aspirations were well known.  I was a punk high school kid that heard that Lugar was to be the featured speaker at a Lenten Men’s prayer breakfast my father was attending and I asked if I could tag along.  Dad said “Sure,” and I found myself in a small room with about 15-20 of the most powerful business men in Indiana.  Needless to say, I stayed in the shadows in that crowd – I had nothing to offer these men.

I had not been in the room more than 2-3 minutes and Lugar spotted me.  All those men were well established and their votes in the next election were secure.  I would be old enough by the next election to vote for Lugar for Senate, and he figured that out with a glance.  He then excused himself from who he was talking to, parted this crowd of very successful and powerful men and walked right up to me and introduced himself.

The brief conversation was not about politics, it was about prayer, which we were there for, and about my connecting with his kids since they and I were active in Young Life, just at different high schools.  In that moment Lugar secured my vote for as long as I lived in Indiana.  I did not know beans about politics or policy at the time, but I knew a good man when I met one.

Geraghty is right – Dick Lugar is not a bad man – he is in fact a very good man.  He did a bad job of reading the tea leaves – he should have retired with the grace he always exhibited and the plaudits that are his just desert.  That said the political misjudgement of this election cycle should not be Dick Lugar’s legacy.  The decades of service that preceded it are a great legacy and for them I applaud him.

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Obama campaign blasts Mitt Romney for initial silence after supporter says president ‘should be tried for treason’

The LATimes “describes” the action:

A backer introduced Romney by slamming President Obama for taking credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden, comparing Obama to Ronald McDonald. And when a woman said Obama should be tried for treason, Romney didn’t disagree and asked the woman to follow up her question.

Later, when asked by reporters about the treason comment, Romney said he did not believe the president should be tried.

There was aghast coverage by NPR. and David Plum pointed out that all us common voters are crazy.   This whole thing is kind of unbelievable.  The event presented Romney with a clear choice – chastise, publicly, an ardent supporter or provide the Obama campaign with this bit of fodder.  What he chose to do was respect the freedom of his supporter, a freedom that includes the right to overstate things and spin from time to time.  But of course the press would know nothing about that.

Or would they?  Believe it or not, someone found a way to make the incident about Mormonism:

According to the Post’s Phil Rucker, who was with Romney in Euclid, Ohio, the presumptive Republican nominee was answering questions at a town-hall style rally when a woman asked him what he would do as president to “restore our Constitution in this country,’’ given that President

Obama “should be tried for treason.”

Many in the crowd of 500 responded by applauding the woman, and the candidate had this to say: “I happen to believe that the Constitution was not just brilliant, but probably inspired. I believe the same thing about the Declaration of Independence.”

Which was not exactly on point, and not at all a stand-up response.

Mark Silk, a professor of religion in public life at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, said it’s Mormon teaching that the U.S. Constitution is divinely inspired. And this is the first time Silk remembers hearing Romney reference an LDS teaching on the campaign trail.

Any excuse I guess.  A lot of us believe that God works in history, including the drafting of the constitution.  Yes, Romney used some distinctively Mormon phraseology in his statement, but he has been using that phrase throughout his campaign.  Apparently this writer wanted to take the anthill on the molehill and try to build a mountain.

Meanwhile everyone is trying to “explain” Mitt and Mormonism.  One guy said it is a “club,” not a “cult.“  I don’t think this is helpful, the last thing Mormons need is to be portrayed as insulated.  Dane McBride remember what it was like to be on mission with Mitt.  That’s a story that should get wider spread.

Salon pulls more quotes from Alex Pareene’s “The Rude Guide To Mitt.”  Won’t quote and shouldn’t link.  Pareene is clearly an ugly petty man.  Apparently that passes for funny and entertaining in some places.  And here I always thought to be considered witty you had to be smart, not merely derisive.  Oh well, I am just old and not “tuned in,” as they say.

Seriously In Closing

Leading Godblogger Justin Taylor, quotes leading Christian author Vern Polythress:

Many Western humanists expect the state to cure all ills. When they see a problem, such as suicide, drug addiction, oppression, war, poverty, sexual exploitation, racial hatred, or mere ignorance, they are greatly distressed. Their feelings of distress and indignation are in a sense proper, but because they do not admit that the root of these ills is found in human sin, they look for immediately engineered human solutions. After all, if human nature is basically good, the difficulty must not really be that intractable. It must be solvable, and solvable now. Any delay is reprehensible. The state has the maximum concentration of power and resources for the job. Hence the state must institute a program to solve the problem. If the problem cannot be solved merely by throwing money at it, then a state-run educational program can do the job.

Hence in the twentieth century we have seen the growth of huge state bureaucracies. Moreover, in many political arguments it is simply assumed that the state is the proper agent for the job. The debates tend to be confined to the question of expediency and quantity: whether the citizens are willing to foot the bill for still another program, and whether one program rather than another will be effective.

We must break out of this foolishness. The state is not god, nor is it the savior of humanity. It cannot remedy all ills.

Closing in Laughter

Big story yesterday about how dino farting lead to climate change which lead to dino extinction.  So much for the meteor impact theory of dinosaur extinction.  But worry not, referencing our section just prior the South Coast Air Quality Management District already has rules in place to control emissions from livestock operations.  Look out cow farts – they’re coming for you!

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.