When Mitt Romney said that, he was doing the obligatory good son routine — he was talking about what an extraordinary guy his father George Romney was. Yet that quote is actually pretty reflective of what one sees in watching Romney and his wife Ann’s 25-minute interview with George Stephanopoulos.
For much of the interview, Romney looks uncertain; he stutters; he looks rather like a deer in the headlights. He looks positively embarrassed about admitting that he only joined the NRA in August. He does not look “presidential.” Richard Cohen at the WaPo has this assessment:
In fact, to watch Romney on the show was to see a thoroughly counterfeit man. If he were a coin, a vending machine would spit him out….
Since all politicians, like lovers and mattress salesmen, lie a bit, we do not expect purity. But Romney has taken things too far. I don’t know whether he has any respect for himself, but he sure as hell has none for us.
Harsh, yet sadly accurate.
On the specifics of the interview, one aspect has garnered quite a bit of press attention, namely, Romney’s apparent denial of a fairly basic tenet of the Mormon faith. Said Mitt:
Stephanopoulos asked Romney how Muslims might view the Mormon doctrine that teaches that Jesus will probably return to the United States and reign on earth for 1,000 years. Romney responded by saying “that doesn’t happen to be a doctrine of my church.”
“Our belief is just as it says in the Bible, that the messiah will come to Jerusalem, stand on the Mount of Olives, and that the Mount of Olives will be the place for the great gathering and so forth,” he said.
But said a spokesman for the Mormons:
a church spokesperson said the Mormon Church does teach, in part, that Jesus will someday return to North America.
“We believe that Christ will return again to the Earth, and while that day is not imminent, it is our responsibility to prepare for that eventuality. One appearance will be to the new Jerusalem and another will be to the Jerusalem of the old world,” said spokesperson Michael Purdy. “It is our belief that the new Jerusalem will be established within the state of Missouri.”
Awkward.
Ann, it should be said, came across quite well in the interview.
He’s an expert on men who don’t perform up to the proper expectations of their job.
Any reason why He shouldn’t? The ultimate ‘Show Me’ for that state.
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Since we’ve already had a President who was adamant that he was drinking the actual, rather than allegorical, blood of Jesus – how shocking do you think this really is?
is the rate at which Romney is fleeing even from the basic doctrines of his own church, not what those doctrines actually say.
Fleeing the basic doctrines of his church? This is nothing more than deliberate and willful ignorance of the complexity of religion and its adherents.
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Do you keep strictly kashrut? Follow all of the clean/unclean rules of Leviticus? Trim your forelocks? Are you fleeing the basic tenets of your religion?
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This is the same hypersimpliefied attack that was made on Kerry in 2004, because he would not announce that he believes that any abortion, any time is homicide; that he believes divorce should be illegal, etc. Religion is a complex matter; religious belief is not monolithic.
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Pretending that it is is in order to manufacture a cheap gotcha the tactic of religious extremists like Falwell and Robertson. Maybe what you are trying to do is to chum the waters in order to get the extreme right into a feeding frenzy. But it is the non-substantive flinging of poop, and should be beneath self-professed liberals.
I think the extraordinary attention paid to whether Romney really,really believes in every last thing the Mormon church professes is a little silly. Let’s ask President Bush — or anyone — what he believes about the resurrection of the body, for instance, or whether he’s a creationist, for cryin’ eye. If he’s not down-the-line, what’s the big whoop?
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I don’t really have a problem with the airing of such questions, just the fact that they’re only aimed at Romney right about now.
anthony gets it right downthread. Romney always scrupulously avoids saying anything at all about what HE believes. Which is fine with me, I guess. But in the interview, he plainly misrepresented church doctrine.
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So, to CMD, it would be like my saying “one can keep kosher while eating pork.” It just doesn’t work that way.
I am a member of a church that is often wrongfully presented as being monolithic in its views, in no small measure because it has a hierarchy which, like all religious hierarchies, likes to pretend that it has the last word on all things.
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It is offensive when another member of my religion informs me of what my beliefs are; it is far more offensive when a non-member does. I happen to disagree with that hieracrchy on a number of substantive matters, and yet I am still a member of my church. I am sure that there are quite a number of arcane matters about which I am wrong– not because the question is so controversial, but because the question is arcane.
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It sure seems to me like you have picked out a specific issue– the specific location of the real estate that the Messiah will step on upon His return– that is extremely arcane, even insignificant, for all Christians other than those most interested in an extremely literal-minded belief in the scriptures and a particular fixation upon the Second Coming (i.e., fundmentalist Christians a/ka the religious right), found a Mormon belief that such people would find shocking, discovered Romney either disagrees with that Mormon belief, or didn’t know about it, and thrown the whole thing out there in hopes of an explosive reaction by the fundamentalists.
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In other words, it sure sounds like baiting religious bigotry to me.
George Stephanopoulos and ABC. And all they did is compare the statements of Mitt Romney as to what his church’s doctrine is, to those of an official spokesman for that same church.
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So settle down. I don’t know or particularly care what Mitt Romney himself believes. Nor am I any sort of expert on Mormon dogma. But when Mitt Romney makes a flat assertion as to what the “doctrine of [his] church” is (or, in this case, is not), and a church official contradicts him, someone is either wrong or trying to fudge.
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As for your assertion that the old Jerusalem/new Jerusalem thing is so “arcane” that Romney might not know about it, I’ll repeat your words: nice try.
I’ll bet any number of people would “misstate” the beliefs of their particular religion or church, or sect, or whatever. So you may well be right, but again, I’m inclined to give Romney a pass on this one, since we don’t give anyone else a similar grilling.
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That being said, Romney does bring it upon himself when he talks about how important it is to have a “person of faith” as President. It then becomes fair game to ask about the particulars of that faith. But he’s not the only one making such a claim, only the one most likely to be asked about the particulars of his faith. Still doesn’t strike me as fair.
Y’know, the Mormon authority said that Jesus would return to Jerusalem, and THEN go on His world tour. Mitt said his church thought that Jesus would return to Jersusalem, as do many other faiths. There really aren’t any contradictions here. I know my church just says He’s coming back, no details if He’s doing an appearance in Topeka or not. Maybe he will!
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Jerusalem – first stop on the 2012 World Return Tour!
No to Missouri!
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I mean, I think the JC comeback tour could find a better place to kick off than Branson. Unless of course, JC is a Mormon like Mitt believes, than Branson has a good place for mormons; I hear Donnie and Marie Osmand have doen quite well there.
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I would be dissappointed, however, that J-man didn’t first stop of at my home, The Hub of the Universe. What better place for a King of Kings to return.
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I personally don’t believe JC is coming back, so I’d be shocked to see him appear anywhere outside of a grilled cheese sandwich or a tree stump.
I didn’t realize he was a poster here on BMG. How did he get your handle?
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The specifics of the Apocalypse are indeed arcane for most Catholics and most “mainline” Protestant churches. Indeed, I don’t think my church has any specifics on the matter, other than that there will someday be a second coming. On the other hand, the specifics of the Apocalaypse are central to many evangelical churches– see the popularity of “Left Behind,” details of “the Rapture” and churches that believe that they can relate the events in the Middle East specifically to prophecy in the Revalation of St. John, or even calculate the date of the Last Day.
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So, are you enough of an expert on Mormonism to determine that there is zero range of belief within Romney’s specific church, and this specific belief is something super-duper important? If not, you have demonstrated that, like just about everyone else on the planet, Mitt is ignorant about some of the details of his own religion.
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Again, I find the glee with which this particular non-story was raised to be a transparent attempt to bait those awaiting the Rapture, on the theory that they vote in the Republican primary.
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Aside from the odiousness of attempting this via religious attack, I wonder if whether, if I dug enough, I would find BMG posts deploring this very tactic when utilized by the Healy Campaign before the Democratic primary.
I hate to interrupt your riff against liberals, but if you look upthread, it’s a Republican that delivered what I thought to be an extremely snide and silly slam on Catholics for believing in transubstantiation.
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You’re like a hammer looking for a nail. There’s none here.
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The issue is a lot simpler.
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Fact: Mitt Romney–or the calculating robot who plays him on TV–is basing his entire campaign strategy on appealing to George Bush’s Christianist lunatic base.
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Fact: Mitt unfortunately belongs to a church they regard as heretical, if not demonic.
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Fact: Mitt has avoided discussing his Mormon beliefs in public, although he appeals to church leaders for cash in private.
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Fact: Mitt has repeatedly flip-flopped his positions on a whole host of other issues to appeal to his new base.
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Are we entitled to conclude anything about Mitt Romney from those facts? Or are we obligated to blind ourselves to them?
And I will conclude the obvious from this particular line of left-wing attack on Romney. As far as I am concerned, these sort of attacks– based solely on who the man is rather than what he does– are bigotry, plain and simple.
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I am no fan of Romney, as I have made clear repeatedly. I think he pulled a bait and switch on the Commonwealth, having run as Weld and governed as Brownback. I will not ever vote for him for anything, ever.
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But these He’s a Mormon! That’s icky! attacks are ignorant bigotry. That they are coming from self-proclaimed liberals is truly appalling to me, as it exposes all of the high-minded rhetoric about “respecting diversity” to be horses–t.
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As for the reference above to transubstantiation, I recognize satire when I see it. Of all of your little list of Romney’s sins above, only one actually relates to his religion directly: He refuses to discuss his religion while appealing to his church leaders for help in raising cash. How awful; but this is as apt a description of the career of our senior senator as any.
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….is attacking Romney’s religion. He is being attacked for his opportunistic obfuscation. The fact that in this particular instance his religion was part and parcel of that obfuscation is really beside the point.
when it’s attached with a fork through the head.
that your entire complaint is completely mendacious.
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Thanks for saving me from wasting any more time.
…on whether or not to vaccinate children from HPV and on science education informed soley on interpertation of a supernatural belief, those beliefs have to be laid on the table.
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There are politicians out there who believe that women do not deserve to be innoculated from cervical cancer-causing HPV because having sex outside of marriage is against “God’s Law”.
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I want to know, as a voter, am I going to be goverened by laws arrived at through inteelctual consideration, reason, rational thought, debate, and concensus? Or am I going to be governed by “God’s law”?
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I don’t want to be goverened by God’s law and I don’t want someone who believes the Earth is thousands of years old.
Any and all religious questions relating to specific policy issues are totally fair. For instance, if Romney were to state the exact location of the Second Coming and what he was to do in order to bring about such an eventuality, that would be news indeed.
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And in fact, it seems that some Chistians are happy with the worsening situation in the Middle East, since it seems to them that Jesus’ return is that much nearer. Yeah, that counts.
Then why don’t you concern yourself with his position on HPV vaccinations? It seems to me that to the extent that a candidate’s beliefs inform their policy positions, those positions are fair game.
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Indeed, the fairness of that game has hamstrung a series of pro-choice Catholic democrats, hasn’t it?
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What I object to is the attacks on Romney because he is a Mormon, period. That is what happened in this thread, IMO.
…that makes his/her decisions based upon belief in varied interpertations of supernatural belief.
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Currently, most politicians are savy enough to stay away from overt language such as “God’s law” that’s used by some activists on the radical right. Instead, they used coded language such as “traditional marriage” to signify “marriage as defined in Christian contexts”. Often times people who argeue life begins at conception mean to say “God places a soul into an embryo as soon as the sperm hits the egg”.
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Politicians by and large do not make such fringe statements, rather they cover their tracks with pseudo-intellectual arguments that send the right message to the faithful while making it easier to digest for the moderates (see Romney’s stance on stem cells). The voting public is left to decode religious candidates’ positions based on statements and their actions.
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If a candidate believes that our society shouldn’t perform stem cell research because that candidate believes a 150-cell human blastosys has “a soul” I don’t want him/her as my elected official. However, a candidate would most likely never admit as much; they would use rhetoric concerning “the sanctity of all human life” instead of adressing the supernatural idea that an embryo has a soul.
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Sure, I am concerned about Romney’s position on the HPV vaccine. But what I am concerned about most is who/what informs him about HPV, abortion, stem cells, SSM marriage. It doesn’t seem to be science and reason. Why bother drilling Romney or any religious right candidate on every last position if evidence strongly suggests they are using religion as a final arbiter on social issues?
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Has anyone offered one intellectually sound, rational argument agaisnt SSM, or has it been all thinly veiled religious rhetoric?
Bring up Vatican Two and ask him how he feels about it.
….did not say that he did not believe or embrace this particulary doctrine, he said that his church did not hold that doctrine, which is a different thing. He’s not being called to task for what his church believes, or being held to task for an aspect of his faith he personally doen’t embrace, he is being held to task about being misleading about the doctrine of his church when speaking about it in public. Is it possible that he was just mistaken?
Sure but why should he get the benefit of the doubt, he is after all a politician with a penchant for telling the story he thinks his current audience wants to hear. He’s worn out his good faith, no pun intended.
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I am skeptical that the flips and flops hurt him the way we think with his target audience. It is validating for them to welcome a convert, especially someone who is the Enemy of an Enemy (e.g., the people of Massachusetts). Kill the fatted calf, welcome the prodigal son, etc.
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However, the flips and flops make His Expediency especially vulnerable to any slips like this that suggest his conversion may be motivated by anything other than the deepest convictions.
But did read the transcript. You don’t get the expressions, etc. from reading so I’d be interested to see Mitt in action. I did my morning Mitt Google and read The Talented Mr. Romney, I liked when Cohen discussed how he would do his web search and brace himself for the next Romney “Turnaround” (apt title of the book BTW) I think we all do the same thing, it was funny that he wrote about it.
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Can I be the first to declare that Mitt will not be out done in the race to the bottom and also come out an say specifically that he wants Roe v. Wade overturned.
Romney said he voted in the Democratic Primaries:
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Question: Was there ever a Democrat who ran against Tip O’Neal or Ted Kennedy as he claims?
were truely insane. I kept on thinking to myself that this is the best that Mitt and his staff could come up with?
This style of voting has been common practice in Massachusetts since “unenrolled” (an absurd term) first became legal.
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And just who the hell is supposed to remember, specifically, whether or not Kennedy or O’Neill had primary challenges thirty-odd years ago, anyway?
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The gist of this thread, its pettiness and its thinnly veiled religious biggotry, speaks volumes to me of the abject panic on the part of some, that Mitt Romney might just might be the guy who could frustrate the left’s best hopes for ’08’.
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It seems that nobody here has been able to score a clean head shot on Mitt.
Instead, there’s been this tiresome and ceaseless biting of the ankles.
makes the mice tremble, and throws down the Bichon from her seat. He scatters the poodles with the strength of his arm, and the gerbils flee before his face. He maketh the earth to shake, as when a UPS truck drives a little too fast down Mass. Ave.
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Fear him!
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…because there was a political party that styled itself the Independent Party (or something like that. The state had to come up with a different term for real “independents.”
Some people consider Mormons to be a UFO cult. If you believe that I am kidding, I can assure you that I am not. Do a google search using the search terms “mormon kolob” click on a couple of pages and you’ll get a gist of what I am refering to.
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It’s silly, from both sides. The sad fact is, however, that it is true.
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I could go on and on about how mass-marketed religion in the USofA divides people. But I’ll refrain. But I’ll merely remind you that mass-marketed religion in the USofA is all about money.