Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

And one more thing on Romney

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From the NYT blog:

[Romney] responded tersely today when a reporter asked him why he had not done more to fight the [racist] policy in his church before it was changed in 1978.

“It wasn’t my position to do so,” he said.

Ah.  That’s pretty much what Frank Rich was saying last weekend.

Mr. Romney didn’t fight his church’s institutionalized apartheid, whatever his private misgivings, because that’s his character. Though he is trying to sell himself as a leader, he is actually a follower and a panderer, as confirmed by his flip-flops on nearly every issue.

When a leader sees injustice, he stands up and tries to do something about it.  There’s lots of different forms that can take.  But he does something.  That’s what George Romney did — not by physically marching in the presence of Martin Luther King, as we now all know, but by participating in other civil rights marches, by issuing gubernatorial proclamations in support of Dr. King’s work, by doing something.

As has been widely noted, Mitt Romney was 31 years old at the time the Mormon church abandoned its racist policy.  What, by his own account, did he do about it?

He wept in his car on Fresh Pond Parkway.  Because it “wasn’t his position” to do anything else.

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  1. As has been widely noted, Mitt Romney was 31 years old at the time the Mormon church abandoned its racist policy.  What, by his own account, did he do about it?

    He wept in his car on Fresh Pond Parkway.  Because it “wasn’t his position” to do anything else.

    <

    p>A beter distillation of Mitt Romney the man cannot be found anywhere on the planet.

  2. …should know that “An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” and therefore should have worked to correct said injustice.  

  3. As has been widely noted, Mitt Romney was 31 years old at the time the Mormon church abandoned its racist policy.  What, by his own account, did he do about it?

    <

    p>what did he actually say about it at the time?  He might not have been in a position to do anything about it, but he could have said something about it.

    • Unlike Lt. Gov. Harry Reid, who also has a record of silence, Mitt was an anonymous young business exec, not a public figure.  To whom should he have spoken, as opposed to private conversation which none of us could ever be privy to, that it could be ‘on the record’ all those years later?

      • It’s “to whom,”*, quite frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn “to whom” he might have expressed the sentiment.  The issue is whether there is any evidence that he expressed the sentiment to anyone?

        <

        p>*someone here has taken me to task for my grammar.

      • he’d be trumpeting it now.  But with the statement quoted in my post, he’s pretty much admitted that he never said a thing to anyone.  “Wasn’t his position.”

        <

        p>Plus, would you please get off this “anonymous” bullshit?  The guy was the son of George Romney, an extremely well-known politician and business exec, and one of the country’s most prominent Mormons.

        <

        p>Your act is getting exceedingly tired, PP.  

      • …to brag about figuratively marching with MLK. He seems like a guy savvy enough that if he wants his opinion known he could find a record on which to place said opinion.  

        1. As a church member [I am a Mormon, but haven’t now been to a church service in some years] I did – as did others e write letters to church leaders, to newspapers, to magazines about concerns about church policies and actions.

        <

        p>2.  We support alternative publications – in the Mormon tradition, these include Sunstone and others.  Did he ever have subscriptions to or support the “progressive Mormon publications” like that one?  See http://www.sunstoneonline.com/

        <

        p>On the other hand, this is not without “risk” for a young prince of the church as W. Mitt Romney then was.  I note that the Latter Day Saint/Mormon actually excommunicates members who were to gung-ho for the equal rights amendment.  I note that Sonia Johnson WAS excommunicated http://www.exmormon.org/mormon…

        <

        p>I note that the full Presidency of the Church came out against the Equal Rights Amendment:  http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/in…

        <

        p>I doubt that Mitt has EVER spoken in favor of the Equal Rights Amendment, either.  

        <

        p>There is a risk/benefit analysis here, and if taking positions which are against the theology of the church can truly put eternal rewards at risk, I do not think risk taking is likely.

        <

        p>  

  4. Isn’t this instead an argument that the content and not just the presence of a candidate’s faith is a reasonable topic for public discourse. Faith without obedience — in fact, without blind obedience — is just not faith. No one has “faith” in the multiplication table or the street map. Aren’t you, by requiring him to go against his faith, asking him to do exactly that which he has contracted not to do?

    <

    p>Ask instead: What other beliefs does he confess?

  5. Zero sympathy for Mitt.  

    <

    p>However, let’s turn the lens on us.  

    <

    p>What is my obligation, David, or yours, to do something about injustice?

    <

    p>I do nothing about the homeless guys I walk around.  Or about human rights abroad.  Or about the Boston teen-on-teen murder rate.  

    <

    p>In 15 years, if a little GGW were to ask “Let me get this straight.  Boston paid cops a lot of ‘overtime’ to sit in their cars on these things called details.  Meanwhile kids were shot to death, a couple per week.  And nobody made the cops earn overtime instead by patrolling the violent areas instead?  And you did nothing?”….what would I say?  What would you say?  

    <

    p>”I didn’t really do anything.  I blogged about it once or twice on this thing called BMG.  I kinda focused on my thing, which was education.  A guy just has so much time…”  

    <

    p>I am not claiming that I’m making a precise analogy to the Mitt situation.  

    <

    p>I am saying that all of us are confronted with injustices.  Few of us do much about them.  

    <

    p>i make donation here.  A volunteer moment there.  Etc.  

    <

    p>I suppose that hits your minimal standard of doing “something.”  But sometimes we do these low effort “somethings” to make ourselves feel good, even though we don’t believe there will be any effect on the injustice per se.  

    <

    p>I’m just curious how we all see our personal mandate to “Do something about injustice.”  

  6. Curious what the proRomney folks would say about this, I went to Powerline Blog.  

    <

    p>They seem to be willfully reframing it:

    <

    p>

    Mitt Romney has been drawing criticism for saying that he “saw” his father march with Martin Luther King, even though he did not witness the event.

    <

    p>But I thought the controversy was not that Mitt didn’t personally witness an actual event, but that the actual event (George Romney participation in an MLK march) DIDN’T actually happen.  

    <

    p>

  7. Let it be said that there is one area in which Mitt has neither flip-flopped nor deviated from his goal. He has shown leadership, drive and consistency in the advancement of his own personal ambition. He has exhibited admirable self-discipline in avoiding non-self-promoting distractions.

    <

    p>In this sense, he is a worthy successor to George W. Bush, who has shown (at least since coming under the management of K. Rove) constant devotion to personal enrichment and the creation and protection of wealth and influence for his already wealthy friends. These two men have been unerring and steadfast. If you are members of certain class, you can count on them.

    • between Mitt and his father.  George was a leader with respect to doing the right thing and speaking the truth, regardless of the cost to himself — which was considerable, since his speaking out on the deception surrounding the Vietnam war likely cost him the presidency.

      <

      p>To Mitt, on the other hand, the only thing that matters is cost to himself.  All other values (including truth) are secondary.

  8. This wildly out of proportion, pathetic obsession to discredit the Romney family regarding their commitment to civil rights before it was stylish, reminds me of a public figure from another era, a proven liar and perjurer, and the hilarious bullshit fantasy he spun about himself as a nine year old (wise and enlightened beyond his years, of course!) and his imaginary act of solidarity with an
    actual civil rights hero.

    • But how exactly is this a “bullshit fantasy?”  It seems perfectly plausible, unlike Romney’s fabrications:

      <

      p>I remember as if it were yesterday that fateful day 50 years ago. I was a nine-year-old Southern white boy who rode a segregated bus every single day of my life. I sat in the front. Black folk sat in the back. When Rosa showed us that black folks didn’t have to sit in the back anymore, two of my friends and I who strongly approved of what she had done decided we didn’t have to sit in the front anymore. It was just a tiny gesture by three ordinary kids, but that tiny gesture was repeated over and over again, millions and millions of times in the hearts and minds of children, their parents, their grandparents, their great grandparents, proving that she did help to set us all free.

      <

      p>As has been pointed out numerous times, this isn’t about discrediting the Romney family.  In fact, Mitt Romney would look even worse if it were true.  George Romney’s action makes Mitt Romney’s inaction even more pathetic.

      • Study the indisputable facts and the timeline.

        <

        p>If you can still buy into bubba’s yarn with a straight face, hey, who am I to burst your bubble?

        • I don’t see an issue with the timeline…

          <

          p>Bill Clinton was born on 8/19/1946.

          <

          p>Rosa Parks had her moment of fame on 12/1/1955.

          <

          p>Bill Clinton was nine years old at the time, so the timeline fits just fine.  Could you please point out where it’s incorrect, and show us any other “indisputable facts” you’re aware of?

          • A) There was no public bus system in Hot Springs, AK in 1955.

            <

            p>B) If Bill Clinton was riding any bus on a daily basis,  it would have been a school bus which is highly unlikely, given that lived only a few blocks from the school he attended.

            <

            p>C) Even if he was riding a school bus daily (again, highly unlikely), there would have been no black kids on it, because the school system he attended was racially segregated.

            <

            p>Making the story even more implausible is Clinton’s embracing of Senator William Fulbright, a Democrat and racist, as his role model.

            <

            p>I sometimes wonder, given that The Governor of Arkansas, at the time, was a Democrat and racist, that the Senators from Arkansas were Democrat and racist, that the schools were only intergrated after a Republican President stepped in and federalized the National Guard in order to protect the black kids in Little Rock – given all that, why lil’ Bill, who was was so concerned about equality and justice, chose to be a Democrat, just like his racist mentor. Just wonderin’.

            • In Little Rock, AR, Central High was forcibly integrated in 1957.  Three years before, the schools in Benton, AR, near Little Rock, had quietly integrated because they didn’t want to legally contest Brown v. Board of Education.  I’m having trouble Googling up the history of Hot Springs integration, but you don’t have the evidence to make conclusions about when desegregation occurred there, nor to make conclusions about buses in that town (Clinton could be remembering riding a Greyhound or a privately owned bus business).  

              <

              p>As to racism in Arkansas’ politicians, it’s pretty clear that Fulbright considered voting against civil rights legislation to be the price to win by getting racist voters to support him.  You know, like how Ronald Reagan went to Philadelphia Mississippi and spoke about states’ rights and strapping young bucks who bought steaks with food stamps.  There were far worse politicians when it came to race, like “Justice Jim” Johnson of Arkansas, who accused Gov. Orval Faubus of being closeted integrationist, thus not as purely segregationist as Justice Jim.  Of course, at the end of the 1960s it was not clear which political party would support civil rights, but with Nixon and Reagan’s Southern Strategy, and Trent Lott’s approval of the 1948 Strom Thurmond candidacy, the decision was made.  It’s worth noting that Justice Jim Johnson switched to the Republican Party in 1980.

              <

              p>In 1966, Bill Clinton was a campaign aide to Jim Johnson’s opponent, Judge Frank Holt.

              <

              p>The modern Republican party has shunned liberal Republicans like George Romney and the Rockefellers who governed Arkansas and New York.  And the modern Democratic Party has sought to guarantee the civil rights of African Americans.

              <

              p>Back to the main topic, I’m perfectly willing to credit George Romney with being a good guy, and I don’t think we should be hounding Mitt about this.

              <

              p>We should be hounding Mitt for wasting taxpayer money to pay Angelo Buonopane’s salary when that hack didn’t show up to work half the time.  Mitt is a crappy manager.

    • It sounds fishy to me. But the difference between Clinton’s Rosa Parks story and Mitt’s “My father and I Marched with MLK” story is that Bill’s story is not falsifiable – Mitt’s story is falsifiable and has been shown as false.

      <

      p>And to beat a dead horse, Bill Clinton perjuring himself is irrelevant to the discussion of Mitt Romney making stuff up about MLK.  

    • …Mittens saw his father marched with MLK in Grosse Pointe–and the evidence suggests that he couldn’t have–but what I do care about is that he is unwilling to admit to having made an error.  There is usually no harm in making an error.  

      <

      p>There is something suspicious in not being willing to admit to having made an error such as this, minor as it was.  

      • I used to work for an MBA who truly believed all truth was subjective.  Romney appears to be cut from the same cloth.  

        <

        p>Here’s another example, from “Meet the Press”

        <

        p>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22…

        <

        p>MR. RUSSERT: A fee’s not a tax?

        <

        p>GOV. ROMNEY: A fee–well, a fee–if it were a tax, it’d be called–it’d be called a tax. But…

        <

        p>MR. RUSSERT: Governor, that’s, that’s gimmick.

        <

        p>GOV. ROMNEY: No, it’s, it’s reality. It is. But–and I have no–I’m not trying to hide from the fact we raised fees. We raised fees $240 million.

        • A fee is not a tax. It is a specific sum paid for a specific privilege or service.

          <

          p>I pay fees for the several licenses and certifications that I hold that are issued by the state and feds. If I didn’t need the certs, then I wouldn’t be paying the fees.

          <

          p>Taxes, on the other hand, are levied for the general support of the government, and must be paid whether one uses state services or not.

          <

          p>I have no problem with the amount I pay in fees because I know exactly what I’m getting for them.

          <

          p>Taxes, on the other hand? Hmmm, not so much.

          • ….not all fees are intended to pay for the agencies and or departments associated with them, many go into the general coffers.  Also not everyone pays every tax and some taxes have earmarks that dictate how they must be used by the state.  They are in many ways indistinguishable.

            • Just before the part I excerpted Romney says “We were able to balance our budget in a very difficult time without raising taxes.”

              <

              p>Russert was (correctly) calling bullshit.

    • Not to mention that (although you may have missed this, since heaven knows that dastardly liberal media did its best to prevent anyone hearing about the impeachment) Clinton was, in fact, not convicted which by most standards of our criminal justice system means precisely that he’s not a “proven liar and perjurer.”

      <

      p>”He’s guilty because I don’t like him” isn’t a very good standard of justice.

      • Look, I never said he was convicted of anything.
        He lost his license to practice law because he lied before a judge. That is indisputable.

        <

        p>You don’t think he’s a liar? Fine, whatever floats yer boat, as they say.
        I’m not going to get into a pi**ing contest over this.

        • Oh that’s hilarious.  Starting a pissing contest by moaning about something that Bill Clinton did in a thread about Mitt Romney, and then declaring that you’re below getting into a pissing contest.

          <

          p>I call bullshit, geo.

          • Comparing the politically expedient hyperbole of mittster to that of bubba may be bullshit to you, but I see it as calling out a gross and hypocritical obsession here with a trivial matter, borne more of animus than of justness.

            <

            p>As for interjecting Bill Clinton into the conversation; the integrity-challenged former perjurer-in-chief represents a target-rich environment that I will gladly employ as I see appropriate. No apologies.

            <

            p>If you think me annoying, stupid, insulting or violating the rules of the road here, then you, as owner of this blog, have options. I won’t take it personally, I promise.

            • I’m just enjoying the entertainment!  Like I said, I find it hilarious.

              <

              p>Personally, I think that the Clinton-haters who reflexively toss out some bad thing that Bill Clinton allegedly once did every time a Republican screws up only make themselves look silly.  After all, Bill did leave office nearly ten years ago.  But maybe that’s just me.

            • We are merely amusing one another with our respective silliness. ;^p

              <

              p>As for “Clinton hater”, please don’t mistake a mere absence of respect for hate.
              Hate requires a bit more emotional energy than I am willing to expend on Mr. Clinton.

              <

              p>And regarding the the bringing Bill into conversations; it’s not an obsession with Bill Clinton.
              It’s just that at this time he happens to be the most current former President.
              And until there is another most current former President, he will continue be the object of most comparisons – that’s just how it works.

  9. …why should anyone care whether Mitt’s father marched in Grosse Pointe?  What was Mitt doing by bringing that up?  To bask in his father’s reflected glory?  I  really wouldn’t want to know his father did (I’ve mentioned here before that I might have voted for the father).  What I would want to know is what Mitt himself has done.

    • in either ’12 or ’16. Probably as heir apparent. (Who else?)

      <

      p>As far as that goes: Picture a tanned, rested & ready Romney, his flip-flops and fumbles behind him, facing a battle-scarred President HRC.

      <

      p>It ain’t pretty.

      • …rather hoping that Romney employs his wealth to mount a third party run in this race.  Thay way he can guarantee that the Republicans will lose and kill his political career in one fell swoop.  Not all that unlikely considering the breadth of his hubris.

      • …doesn’t extract the troops from Iraq before 2012, she will certainly be battle scarred and will face a significant challenge, eve if its just by Bozo the Clown.

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