A Stitch in Haste

Two quick data points on Mitt "Null Set" Romney:

First, Romney insists that his "conversion" — not flip-flop, mind you, but "conversion" — to a pro-life position is something that radical social conservatives should celebrate, not question:

"I proudly follow a long line of converts — George Herbert Walker Bush, Henry Hyde, and Ronald Reagan to name a few."
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Two of Romney's rivals — Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Sam Brownback of Kansas — have questioned the former Massachusetts governor's record on abortion. Romney repeatedly vowed not to change state abortion laws and backed abortion rights as recently as 2 1/2 years ago, even though he insists he has always personally opposed the practice.

That's quite a fortuitously timed "conversion."

But, of course, to many if not most voters, on both sides of any issue, the myopia of "believe what I say, not what I said" is all too easily placated with such obviously disingenuous drivel. You practically have to flip-flop in the same sentence before anybody will notice or care.

Second, Romney is reinventing himself on the problem of pesky pardons:

Republican president candidate Mitt Romney, who denied every pardon or commutation during his term as Massachusetts governor, said Thursday a pardon for former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby deserves a close examination.
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On the campaign trail, Romney often cites his record as governor in denying pardons or commutations. During his four years in office, 100 requests for commutations and 172 requests for pardons were filed in the state. All were denied.

Romney has said he refused pardons because he didn't want to overturn a jury.

Here we're a bit closer to that concept of flip-flopping in a single sentence (no pun intended). You either "closely examine" a pardon petition or you don't. You either have an unvarying policy or you don't. You're either honest about having such a policy, or you lie about it. Your moral compass is either functioning properly or a "null set."

There are two ways to be a politician: start with the policy question and frame the correct policy answer, or start with the political answer and work back to framing the correct political question. The fact that, almost without exception, the latter prevails over the former is why all politicians, especially Mitt Romney, are moral defectives.

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(One postscript: Romney also recently flip-flopped on the all-important question — to Evangelicals and Mormons, that is — of where the Second Coming will occur.)

It looks like the radical Evangelicals have finally found a back-door tactic to write off Mitt "Null Set" Romney:

Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney, who rails against the "cesspool" of pornography, is being criticized by social conservatives who argue that he should have tried to halt hardcore hotel movie offerings during his near-decade on the Marriott board.

Two anti-pornography crusaders, as well as two conservative activists of the type Romney is courting, say the distribution of such graphic adult movies runs counter to the family image cultivated by Romney, the Marriotts and their shared Mormon faith.
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Romney said his current concern is not about pornography per se, but children unwittingly stumbling upon it on the Internet or television.

Some hasty stitches:

--This is hardly the sort of "scandal" that, standing alone, should decide one's choice for president. I'd have more respect for the radical theocrats if they fixated instead on "Mitt and Seamus' not-so-excellent adventure." (Incidentally, I hear that hotel mini-bars sometimes have -- gasp! -- alcohol, and that hotel rooms are sometimes used for -- double-gasp! -- prostitution!) What did Romney know and when did he know it?

--Besides, in this instance Romney is right: Directors (especially independent directors) do not micro-manage large corporations. It is unreasonable to expect Romney to have known much about Marriott's porn policy, or to have done anything about it if he had known. Finally, the purpose of a board (and the management it hires) is to maximize profits, not social mores. If Tony Perkins wants Marriott to operate a certain way, then let him buy the company (cf., this).

--But this is all ancillary anyway. The radical Evangelicals are desperate, absolutely desperate, to find a wink-wink way to reject Romney. One that does not require them to state publicly what they feel privately: Mormons need not apply. To the Evangelicals, Mormons exist in a sort of social conservative limbo, right next to the Jews. Perhaps not evil, but definitely not pure.

--If the theocrats are throwing conniptions, real or contrived, over Romney's utterly irrelevant "hotel porn" passivity, then how are they going to respond when the attack ads start showing this:


With McCain imploding and the two legitimate (but hopeless) social conservative candidates still being conveniently ignored by the theocrats, it really does look like the not-yet-candidate may well prevail in securing the 2008 Republican nomination. Strange days indeed...

"I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end — where all men and all churches are treated as equal — where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice — where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind — and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood."
--John F. Kennedy, September 12, 1960

"I saw first hand the liberal future, and it doesn't work."
--Mitt Romney, March 2, 2007

Romney himself would probably be the first to insist that "he's no Jack Kennedy." But that won't stop him from planning a Kennedy-style speech to assuage concerns over his Mormonism:

Romney said it's too early to decide what he would say in such a speech, largely because he hasn't made a final decision to deliver such a talk.

In March, a Gallup poll found that 46 percent had a negative opinion of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant group, considers the LDS church a cult and many other Christian denominations also do not recognize Mormon baptism.
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"I expect that evangelical Christians who believe in life and family values are going to vote for someone who shares their views and has a real prospect of being nominated by our party and becoming president," Romney told the AP.

Yeah right, good luck with that...

A few hasty stitches:

1. The issue underlying Kennedy's speech was not his Catholicism per se, but whether he could remain independent of the Vatican. Although the answer both before and after the 1960 election appeared to be "yes," the question of how Catholic politicians are expected to behave still resurfaces from time to time.

That's not the challenge facing Romney, however. There is no "pope" in Mormonism — there aren't even professional clerics. Just a bureaucrat who, while nominally called a "prophet," is not an autocratic or deemed-infallible ruler analogous to the Bishop of Rome. There is no one in LDS who could conceivably "pull Romney's strings" the way that John XXIII could conceivably have manipulated Kennedy.

Which makes the notion of a major "Mormon speech" by Romney essentially irrelevant. Voters aren't afraid of President Romney kowtowing to President Hinckley. They just happen to think that: (a) Mormons are weird; (b) Mormonism is at odds with much of the rest of Christianity, and (c) Romney is a disingenuous, flip-flopping moral defective panderer. And, since all three statements are factually correct, all the speeches in the world won't help Romney the way Kennedy's speech helped him. Kennedy was debunking a myth. How exactly can Romney debunk the truth?

2. Kennedy delivered his "Catholic speech" in September 1960 — after he had already won the Democratic nomination. He was making an appeal to the other side, not his own base. Romney, meanwhile, is trying to allay the fears of the very people who ought to be his most fervent supporters — theocrats, bigots and other radical social conservatives. So again, the idea that he can simply "pull a Kennedy" is counterintuitive at best.

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Just to clarify: To me, "weird" is not an insult. I'm undoubtedly weirder than the median Mormon. But then again, I'm not running for president.

Just when you think you might have become numb to it all, they find a way to shock-and-awful you even more:

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Wednesday defended his five sons' decision not to enlist in the military, saying they're showing their support for the country by "helping me get elected."
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Romney's five sons range in age from 37 to 26 and have worked as real estate developers, sports marketers and advertising executives. They are now actively campaigning for their father and have a "Five Brothers" blog on Romney's campaign Web site.

Not the Peace Corps, not Habitat for Humanity, not Doctors Without Borders, not even the Mormon Tabernacle Choir (and certainly not the ASPCA).

Instead, to Romney the functional and moral equivalent to serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, or on an aircraft carrier or even at Fort Suburb (or perhaps joining the Boston Police or the Coast Guard or even the TSA) is: "Helping Earthly Father become Theocrat-in-Chief."

What a soulless man this is.

Two quick stories regarding Mitt Romney, who is still trying not to be thought of as Satan by his fellow theocrats --

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ITEM: On abortion, Romney asks, "Can't we all just flip-flop along?" --

Asked about abortion rights last week, Mitt Romney grew exasperated and said: "I'm pro-life; it would be great if we could just leave it at that."
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Before audiences in early voting Iowa and New Hampshire, where Romney leads in the polls, the former Massachusetts governor insisted he wants the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade and allow the states to determine their own abortion policies.

Ah yes, a favorite among the theocrats (and others): the "World Without Roe" lie.

Apparently a refresher course is in order: Overturning Roe v. Wade (really Casey v. Planned Parenthood) would not "send abortion back to the states." It would send abortion back to Congress, to pass federal abortion laws one way or the other. Laws such as the Federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, just upheld by the Supreme Court in Gonzales v. Carhart. Like the decision or hate it, consider it hypocritical or nuanced, one fact stands out to all who read it: Nowhere does the Supreme Court talk about sending partial-birth abortion "back to the states." The Court upheld a federal law -- and without Roe the Court would uphold any federal law -- pro-choice or pro-life -- that may happen to come out of Congress.

So when Romney says overturning Roe would "send abortion back to the states," he is speaking from a position of either a profound ignorance of basic constitutional law, or a profound ability to lie to voters.

Actually, it's definitely the latter:

Yet in recent weeks, he has acknowledged he also supports a plank in the 2004 Republican Party platform calling for a federal "Human Life Amendment" to the Constitution. It would repeal Roe v. Wade with an eye toward banning abortion nationwide.

Onward Christian liar...

In any case, one shudders to think of the carnage that this moral defective would inflict on America as theocrat-in-chief.

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ITEM: On Romney's disgusting claim that his five sons, none of whom have ever served in the military, are performing an equally patriotic service by working on his presidential campaign, Romney issues a mea culpa --

"I misspoke there. I didn't mean in any way to compare service in the country with my boys in any way. Service in this country is an extraordinary sacrifice being made by individuals and their families. ... I'm very pleased and proud of my boys and the help they're doing for their dad, but it's not service to the country. It's service for me. And there's just no comparison there," he said.

Perhaps we should send the issue "back to the states"...

Apparently some people need to be reminded that Mitt Romney is a civilian. One might even dare say that he is unemployed. He has no claim, none whatsoever, on government resources in connection with his presidential campaign.

So why is this being tolerated?

The motorcade of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney exceeded speed limits and went through stop lights Friday as local law officers escorted him, blue lights flashing, to campaign events in two South Carolina counties.

Traffic pulled over for Romney's caravan as Saluda County Sheriff Jason Booth, a Romney supporter, led the candidate's motor home and staff cars with his blue lights running from the Aiken County line through Saluda County to the Newberry city limits, according to an Associated Press reporter following the candidate.

The caravan traveled between 10 mph and 15 mph over posted speed limits. The posted speed limits were 45 mph and 55 mph.

Whatever the procedure may be for removing a sheriff from office in South Carolina, it must immediately commence in the case of this insolent lawbreaker. At the very least, the South Carolina Attorney General should launch an investigation as soon as is practicable.

"Sheriff" is, or ought be, a strictly non-partisan position. It is a taxpayer-funded position, and taxpayer money (not to mention motorist safety) should not be squandered in the name of a partisan law enforcement officer abusing his authority to further his partisanship. It boggles the mind.

Indeed, if Romney were even slightly ethical, he'd be the first one demanding Booth's ouster -- right after his "heartfelt" apologies to the people of South Carolina for his unconscionable conduct.

Big "if," I know.

All politicians are, by definition, moral defectives. Apparently so are some sheriffs.

And not just his home state -- he also hates New York and California, among others:

Mitt Romney is set to propose eliminating taxes on most investment earnings for families that make under $200,000 a year, the first in what his campaign says will be a series of announcements throughout the fall on the specifics of his tax policy.

The plan entails eliminating taxes on interest earnings, capital gains and dividend income for households that earn less than that income threshold, said Eric Fehrnstrom, a spokesman for the campaign. Mr. Romney plans to promote the proposal Friday while campaigning in northern New Hampshire.

If you're having trouble following my reasoning, let me explain in three simple words: tax-free municipal bonds.

As you may know, the Internal Revenue Code excludes from taxable income, for most taxpayers in most circumstances, the interest from most bonds issued by state & local governments. As a result, those states can offer a lower interest rate and still be competitive with corporate bonds on an "after-tax" basis. This is no great secret.

But if the differential (i.e., preferential) tax treatment of municipal bonds were eliminated, then states, cities, counties, school districts, bridge & tunnel authorities, etc., would suddenly have to compete, on a level playing field, with ExxonMobil, General Mills, Procter & Gamble, etc. Local governments would suddenly have to offer much higher interest rates on their debt, which in turn would mean higher interest expense in their budgets, which would then of course mean higher taxes or budget deficits on state & local taxpayers.

Note also that anyone who already owns a municipal bond would suddenly see the value of the tax benefit wiped out, via a precipitous and permanent decline in the price of the bond.

So I ask again: Why does Mitt Romney hate Massachusetts -- and Massachusetts taxpayers?

Of course, the real problem isn't that Mitt Romney hates Massachusetts (he may very well hate his home state -- that's another blogpost). The real problem is that changing the tax code post facto has ripple effects (sometimes "aftershocks" would be a better descriptor).

Innocent people make decisions, make long-term plans, based on the current tax code, and changing that tax code can be not only disruptive, but downright calamitous to people who were hardly "gaming the system." They were merely responding to the very incentives that the politicians crafted in the first place (e.g., to invest in municipal bonds rather than corporate bonds). Government tries to manipulate behavior (i.e., control people's lives) via the tax code, succeeds, then -- presto! -- changes the rules. Thus ever with taxes.

All in the name of "fairness" or "equality" or "growth" (or, worst of all, "vote for me").

It's quite simple really: The purpose of tax policy should be to raise revenue -- and nothing else. It is an abomination to liberty, it is central planner hubris, to use taxes to control people -- to reward them for "correct" behavior and punish them for "incorrect" behavior.

Because, just like in a courtroom, sometimes the innocent get punished too.

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Incidentally, states already have enough to worry about regarding their fiscal situations. The Romney plan would only exacerbate the problem.

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For Discussion: I am on record as opposing eliminating the deductibility of home mortgage interest, on much the same "detrimental reliance" argument I'm making here. If I were crafting an income tax from scratch, I would vehemently oppose such a deduction. But now that we have it, it would be manifestly unfair to remove it. Am I correct, or is the proper policy "too bad so sad"?

Mitt "Null Set" Romney apparently hates activist mayors:

Mitt Romney criticized GOP presidential rival Rudy Giuliani Thursday for fighting as New York's mayor to eliminate a presidential line-item veto and to maintain a commuter tax on visitors to New York City.
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The line-item veto law was the only major provision of the 1994 Republican "Contract with America" campaign that Clinton endorsed. In 1997, Giuliani filed a lawsuit challenging Clinton's use of the line-item veto, fearing its impact on the ability of the city and New York state to raise taxes on hospitals and use the money to attract federal Medicaid payments.

A year later, the Supreme Court found the line-item veto unconstitutional.

So Romney is upset, or pretending to be upset, because someone negatively impacted, or representing those negatively impacted, by a patently unconstitutional law would have the gall to actually challenge said patently unconstitutional law in court. This, to Romney, is apparently bad governance, or unethical conduct, or a betrayal of conservative principles, or something.

My view is unchanged: Romney wouldn't know a legal (or ethical) principle if one came up and bit him on his flip-flop.

I have said it before and I will say it again: The man is soulless --

"Even when there's a divorce, you still have a mom and a dad.

And even where one member of the partnership may pass away, the memory and the characteristics of that gender, of that partner influence the development of a child."

This from the moral defective who once insisted that he would be a better champion for gays than Ted Kennedy. The man who, meanwhile, is "not theocratic enough" for his confreres in the radical bigot-Christian community.

Strange days indeed...

(Via Bilerico.)

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Meanwhile, another example of Romney's unprincipled addiction to saying whatever it takes:

"For those who are not familiar with it, of the four nationally leading candidates for president ... there's only one of us who's in favor of a federal amendment to the constitution to limit marriage to the relationship between a man and a woman."

Someone unsurprisingly took umbrage with that statement:

Huckabee's campaign considers it disingenuous for Romney to say he's the "only" top candidate who supports the constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. "If he's defining who the top four are and tailoring his remarks to fit that situation, sure," said Huckabee spokesman Eric Woolson. "I think he's doing what he's very good at, and that's parsing his answers to suit the audience."

Heck, any Massachusetts gay couple could have told you that.

Soulless.

Okay, that might be a bit excessive, but his timing certainly is off:

Parents who home school their children should get a tax credit to help offset the expense of teaching, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Wednesday.

"I also believe parents who are teaching their kids at home, homeschoolers, deserve a break, and I've asked for a tax credit to help parents in their homes with the cost of being an at-home teacher," he said.

Romney supports giving parents more educational options, through charter schools or vouchers, but he said legislation should be done on a state level.

This the day after his fellow Mormons in Utah disgracefully invoked mob rule "direct democracy" and overwhelmingly repealed a comprehensive school voucher plan, precisely to disadvantage and discriminate against non-Mormon parents and children -- the very people who would most benefit from vouchers (or homeschooling tax credits) in that Mormon-controlled state.

This was a comment I left on another blog long before yesterday's Utah referendum:

Utah is a terrible voucher test case for two interrelated reasons:

1. The whole point of the voucher program is to empower parents who are less than thrilled with Mormon-controlled school districts. So they're now going to subject it to a ratification vote by -- Mormons?

2. Truth be told, Utah public schools tend to be very good -- because school taxes and budgets are very high, and populations are very homogeneous (to say the least). So any propaganda along the lines of "it's a threat to the schools" will find a receptive audience.

The vote is going to be a wipe-out.

I think I got it pretty much right.

In any case, moral defectives like Romney can't have it both ways: If vouchers (or tax credits) are a good idea, then they are so only because they empower the minority. It therefore makes no sense to subject such a minority-empowering measure to the majority -- it misses entirely the point of why vouchers might be needed in the first place.

(This is directly analogous, incidentally, to another example of conservative idiocy: Fred Thompson's bizarre attempt to call himself "not a bigot" by saying gay marriage is fine, but only if magnanimously conferred by non-gays via the democratic process and not by "problem-making judges." That is, of course, utter nonsense. Gay marriage is either right or it's wrong. If it's right, then it is just as right for "activist judges" to confer it as for a mob-anointed legislature to do so.)

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Incidentally, it bears repeating that homeschooling is increasingly becoming about, not assuring that one's children receive a well-rounded education, but precisely about preventing them from receiving a well-rounded education -- complete with evolution, human sexuality, comparative religion, controversial literature, etc. Homeschooling is becoming less about replacing and more about redacting. Therefore, the past trends showing the superiority of homeschooling will, in about a decade, come crashing down as the functionally illiterate, homeschooled "Jesus Campers" try to make their way out of the Bible Belt and into the real world.

Mitt Romney is a soulless bigot. This is not new news.

What is new news is the fact that he may also be a flaming idiot:

I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that "jihadism" is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today. He answered, "...based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified."

Romney disputes that account. A Mormon arguing with a Muslim via the Christian Science Monitor? It's practically a sitcom.

If the columnist's version is accurate, then in one moronic (Mormonic?) sentence, Romney has shot himself in the political foot not once, not twice, but three times:

1. The idea that Cabinet positions should be allocated by demographics at all. (One wonders: Would half of a Romney cabinet be female?)

2. The idea that quotas should particularly apply to tertiary religions. Stated differently: A man whose religion only constitutes 1.4% of the U.S. population might want to think twice before pointing out how few Muslims there are in America (0.6%) and what offices they are or are not "justified" in holding.

3. The idea that such ignorant blather could come from a Mormon desperately trying to convince non-Mormons, within his own voter base, that being a member of a poorly understood, widely untrusted, minority religion shouldn't matter in questions of politics and governance. "There is not enough black in America to warrant any Kettles in a Pot Administration!"

Of course, playing the Muslim card (i.e., saying idiot things) is not necessarily idiotic when your target audience is itself comprised primarily of idiots -- especially red state redneck neoconservative idiots (cf., "We should double Guantanamo!"). But target audiences change, especially if one actually becomes a nominee. And if Romney does prevail in the Republican race, then he just handed non-idiot voters yet another reason not to vote for him.

(Via Matt Yglesias by way of Unqualified Offerings.) More thoughts at Crossed Pond, Liberty Papers.

This kind:

Mitt Romney has decided to address the topic of his faith -- and he is wise to do so, for rather than being any kind of disability, Romney's faith is actually his greatest strength. It defines him as a person of integrity in interpersonal dealings, of service to the nation and community, and of fidelity to his family. These are things that cannot be said about every candidate in the race.

Why do we still allow, in the Twenty-First Century, radical theists to propagate and perpetuate this Great Lie that the excessively religious are intrinsically morally superior to the less religious and the non-religious?

Is there one shred of credible evidence, that is not countered a million times over, that the religious truly are morally superior? Has no person of faith ever committed any crime, or tort, or sin? Are not the most notorious falls from grace by precisely those who claim an excess of grace? Have not several of the worst crimes against humanity -- particularly against humanity's weakest members -- been explicitly or implicitly sanctioned by organized religion? Are not the great human conflicts of this new century almost exclusively faith-based?

Which premise is better buttressed by the facts? That the religious are morally superior, or that all politicians are moral defectives? Just as it is an axiom, utterly irrebuttable, that there is no such thing as a truly Christian soldier, so too is it pretty damn close to an axiom, nearly irrefutable, that there is no such thing as a truly Christian politician.

And still the radical theists insist that "faith is the greatest strength." Especially in politics. This despite the fact that humanity, century after century, sees little to show for "faith as the greatest strength" except perpetual brutal and barbaric violence against the human spirit, the human body and human dignity. An endless litany of persecution -- against the infidel, against the foreigner, against the slave, against the dissenter, against women, against gays, against whoever the next Others will be. Coupled with an equally endless homily to anti-science, anti-reason, anti-liberty, anti-prosperity, anti-equality, anti-dignity, anti-life.

So tell me how much experience Romney has. Tell me what his policy proposals are and why they are so good. Tell me what his vision for America is. Maybe I'll agree, maybe I won't.

But don't dare tell me that I, or any sane person, should vote for him, or for any other politician, because "faith is actually his greatest strength."

That way madness lies. Always has, always will.

Mitt Romney is scheduled to deliver "The Speech" today. His goal is to convince his own base that his Mormonism should not summarily disqualify him from either serving as President or from at least representing his own base as the Republican nominee.

Considering who he is and who his own base are, this is a bizarre moment indeed.

In any case, one need not be a prophet from upstate New York to foresee what The Speech will and will not say:

--It will be about life beginning at conception and not about life beginning in Missouri.

--It will be about marriage being between one man and one woman, not about marriage being between one man and one woman.

--It will be about Jesus and not about Moroni. It will also be about Christ the Excluder rather than Christ the Welcomer.

--It will be about what unites Mormons and Evangelicals, not about what divides them.

It will, in short, be exactly like Romney himself: soulless.

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I blogged about The Speech back in July, in a post titled, "Mitt Romney is No Jack Kennedy."

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"I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end — where all men and all churches are treated as equal — where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice — where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind — and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood."
--John F. Kennedy, September 12, 1960

"I saw first hand the liberal future, and it doesn't work."
--Mitt Romney, March 2, 2007

Romney himself would probably be the first to insist that "he's no Jack Kennedy." But that won't stop him from planning a Kennedy-style speech to assuage concerns over his Mormonism:

Romney said it's too early to decide what he would say in such a speech, largely because he hasn't made a final decision to deliver such a talk.

In March, a Gallup poll found that 46 percent had a negative opinion of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant group, considers the LDS church a cult and many other Christian denominations also do not recognize Mormon baptism.
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"I expect that evangelical Christians who believe in life and family values are going to vote for someone who shares their views and has a real prospect of being nominated by our party and becoming president," Romney told the AP.

Yeah right, good luck with that...

A few hasty stitches:

1. The issue underlying Kennedy's speech was not his Catholicism per se, but whether he could remain independent of the Vatican. Although the answer both before and after the 1960 election appeared to be "yes," the question of how Catholic politicians are expected to behave still resurfaces from time to time.

That's not the challenge facing Romney, however. There is no "pope" in Mormonism — there aren't even professional clerics. Just a bureaucrat who, while nominally called a "prophet," is not an autocratic or deemed-infallible ruler analogous to the Bishop of Rome. There is no one in LDS who could conceivably "pull Romney's strings" the way that John XXIII could conceivably have manipulated Kennedy.

Which makes the notion of a major "Mormon speech" by Romney essentially irrelevant. Voters aren't afraid of President Romney kowtowing to President Hinckley. They just happen to think that: (a) Mormons are weird; (b) Mormonism is at odds with much of the rest of Christianity, and (c) Romney is a disingenuous, flip-flopping moral defective panderer. And, since all three statements are factually correct, all the speeches in the world won't help Romney the way Kennedy's speech helped him. Kennedy was debunking a myth. How exactly can Romney debunk the truth?

2. Kennedy delivered his "Catholic speech" in September 1960 — after he had already won the Democratic nomination. He was making an appeal to the other side, not his own base. Romney, meanwhile, is trying to allay the fears of the very people who ought to be his most fervent supporters — theocrats, bigots and other radical social conservatives. So again, the idea that he can simply "pull a Kennedy" is counterintuitive at best.

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Just to clarify: To me, "weird" is not an insult. I'm undoubtedly weirder than the median Mormon. But then again, I'm not running for president.

To review — I prophesied the following regarding Mitt Romney's "Faith in America" speech:

It will, in short, be exactly like Romney himself: soulless.

I was correct:

Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom.

You don't need me to elaborate on why that sentence is not only objectively false as a matter of history, current geopolitics or common sense, but is also fundamentally mean, vicious — and, yes, soulless.

But perhaps the statement was an oversight? Perhaps Romney did not really mean that atheists and agnostics must axiomatically be anti-freedom? Perhaps he did not really imply that atheists and agnostics are fundamentally un-American? What, exactly, did Romney really mean by that jaw-dropping sentence?

A spokesman for the Mitt Romney campaign is thus far refusing to say whether Romney sees any positive role in America for atheists and other non-believers, after Election Central inquired about the topic yesterday.
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Indeed, the only mentions of non-believers were very much negative. "It is as if they're intent on establishing a new religion in America — the religion of secularism. They're wrong," Romney said, being met by applause from the audience.

As I reflected upon Romney's intellectually and dogmatically prostrated, "Please let me play in your sandbox..." (or, more correctly, "Please let me beat up the scrawny kid too...") kowtowing to the Evangelicals, which he meekly did at the cost of offending and alienating not only atheists and agnostics, but also Hindus, Buddhists, most Jews and many non-Evangelical Christians, I was reminded of another speech-challenged figure from history (or at least from the movies) who tried to unite two groups and flubbed it:


You'd need all your fingers and toes to count the analogies between the two speeches.

In any case, wouldn't it be wonderful if people like Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee were to proclaim, not their candidacies but rather: "I have no political ambitions! All I want to do is to lead a congregation in prayer!"?

But of course, that would require that they actually think and behave like "Christians." So don't count on it.

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Meanwhile, let's not forget another Republican's view on liberty in America:

Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.

As one Crossed Pond commenter succinctly and brilliantly synthesizes:

Put those two together and you have Iran.---

Also meanwhile, guess which Republican presidential candidate once said this:

The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers.

Hint: He's not a libertarian. Never was, never will be.

Those who bothered to watch my latest Kip Does McLaughlin video from this morning know which award I gave to Mitt Romney.

It really was no contest:



This was of course parody; commentary from 1992 could of course never come back to haunt a presidential candidate -- right?

So not only is Mitt Romney soulless, but so too are the moral defectives who lick his feet hoping for a future cabinet position or whatever:

America is the greatest nation on Earth. ... Now, it is our turn to take the mantle of leadership and ask, what kind of nation will we leave our children and grandchildren?

And what, according to Vin Weber, do "Americans" want in a leader?

Overcoming this new generation of challenges is why we need change. ... Our values are under attack.
...
First, Mr. Romney will strengthen families in America.
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To build strong families, Mr. Romney will also defend our traditional values.

This ain't Vin Weber's first time at the rodeo. He is a classic, famous infamous politician-turned-lobbyist. He is expertly fluent in Codeword and the Politics of Wink-Wink-Nudge-Nudge. He defected from the McCain campaign to become a political mercenary-for-Mitt. He is a hired gun who will say anything for a paycheck.

So when someone like Mitt Romney pays someone like Vin Weber to use terms like "values under attack" or "strengthen families" or "traditional values," everyone knows what they really mean: blame gays, bash gays and hate gays.

Since Weber's mawkish blather is about "America" -- what America "needs" from a leader, what Romney will do for "America," etc. -- the conclusion must be that Romney believes that gays are simply not Americans. We are The Others, right up there with al Qaeda and "unfair" foreign businesses stealing Detroit jobs.

Recall Weber's premise: "Overcoming this new generation of challenges is why we need change." Like the change in Congress in 2006? Would going from George "we don't torture" Bush to Mitt "double Guantanamo" Romney somehow constitute "change"?

This is not a campaign for change -- it is precisely a campaign against change. (Indeed, isn't the very definition of "conservative" to conserve, to oppose change?)

How would President Romney's non-changes compare to President McCain's non-changes, President H. Clinton's non-changes or President Obama's non-changes? That's a question for partisans to quibble over.

But let's not pretend that Romney is anything new, refreshing or bold. There is nothing new, refreshing or bold about gay-bashing cloaked as "values voting." There is nothing new, refreshing or bold about baiting political minorities. There is nothing new, refreshing or bold about megalomaniacs seeking power, or "change," over others. There is nothing new, refreshing or bold about moral defectives proving themselves as such.

One thing I left out from my previous post:

If this were only about me, I would go on. But I entered this race because I love America, and because I love America, I feel I must now stand aside, for our party and for our country.

Mitt Romney is -- was -- the most disingenuous, self-obsessed, say-anything politician since Bill Clinton (I wish I had to go back further than that, but there you go...). The idea that he "did it for the party" rather than the party doing it to him is the most comical lie since "I didn't inhale" (damn, there I go again...).

In any case, let's mark the end of our brief bigotry nightmare with some choice excerpts from Romney's "suspension" speech (he couldn't even bring himself to call it a "withdrawal"):

--The attack on faith and religion is no less relentless. And tolerance for pornography -- even celebration of it -- and sexual promiscuity, combined with the twisted incentives of government welfare programs have led to today's grim realities: 68% of African American children are born out-of-wedlock, 45% of Hispanic children, and 25% of White children.

--The development of a child is enhanced by having a mother and father. Such a family is the ideal for the future of the child and for the strength of a nation. I wonder how it is that unelected judges, like some in my state of Massachusetts, are so unaware of this reality, so oblivious to the millennia of recorded history. It is time for the people of America to fortify marriage through Constitutional amendment, so that liberal judges cannot continue to attack it.

--Europe is facing a demographic disaster. That is the inevitable product of weakened faith in the Creator, failed families, disrespect for the sanctity of human life and eroded morality.

This would be sufficiently nauseating by itself: Pornography causes fatherless (mostly black) babies. Gay fathers cause defective babies. Judicial review is evil; the tyranny of the majority is noble and just. Europe is facing God's Wrath. Etc.

But remember: Romney's fatal flaw was his addiction to flip-flopping. He couldn't even make it through a single "suspension" speech without doing it:

These Jihadists will battle any form of democracy. To them, democracy is blasphemous for it says that citizens, not God shape the law. They find the idea of human equality to be offensive. They hate everything we believe about freedom just as we hate everything they believe about radical Jihad.
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It is the common task of each generation -- and the burden of liberty -- to preserve this country, expand its freedoms and renew its spirit so that its noble past is prologue to its glorious future.

Huh? Who hates whom because who believes society should or should not be based on "god-shaped law"? Who finds equality to be offensive? Who hates everything we believe about freedom? Who is focused on the "burden of liberty" to "expand its freedoms"? Who are radical social conservatives fighting when they're not righting radical Jihadists? Isn't it "their fellow Americans"?

Soulless bastard. To the very end.

More thoughts from South Puget Sound, Hit & Run.