When Jay Leno quizzed Mitt Romney last night about Mormonism, Romney let slip a couple of items I'm guessing he wishes he could take back. True, there's nothing whatsoever on the net this morning about them. The You Tube cut doesn't even include them. But that doesn't mean they won't have an effect -- not when millions of TV viewers heard them.The first unusual step Romney took was in bringing up (on his own) the fact that until 1978 the Latter Day Saints excluded blacks from becoming priests. He spoke of how he had to pull his car over to the side of the road to weep with gratitude when he heard the news on his radio.
That anecdote, of course, presents Romney as a man of proper sentiments. But sentiment alone doesn't make for a good president. Intelligence, discernment and courage count too. And, on that score, Romney's story simply reminded Americans that his "inner feelings" about racial equality were never strong enough to cause him to break from (or evenly openly criticize) his discriminatory religion. And, by the way, when this event happened, Romney wasn't just a dutiful, impressionable kid in a Mormon home. He was 30 years old, a graduate from a joint JD/MBA program coordinated between Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School, and a vice president of Bain & Company, Inc., a management-consulting firm based in Boston.
Again, it wasn't the best moment for Romney to recall. The second item was even worse.
Romney was still trying to deal with the Mormon race problem (again, the race problem he himself had introduced) when he referred to his best friend who is successfully bringing large numbers of Africans into the Mormon Church. Hmm. With the strongly negative impression created by Mormon missionaries (how many Americans really enjoy the discovery of a couple of them on their doorstep?), Romney's second anecdote was a ghastly error.
This is not to mention, of course, that beyond the bothersome aspect of Mormon missionaries, many conservatives are deeply antagonistic to the heresies of the Mormon religion. Therefore, Romney's hopes to persuade some of those knowledgeable evangelicals and Roman Catholics into his camp were very poorly served by reminding them that Mormonism is an aggressive cult with a global vision.
And, finally, one more problem balloon connected to a religious cult that Romney has himself let fly in recent days. Here's the relevant post over at Race 4 2008.
Yesterday, the blogosphere was abuzz because of the comments Mitt gave during an interview with Fox News:
“I’m not in favor of [L. Ron Hubbard’s] religion by any means,” Mr. Romney, a Mormon, said. “But he wrote a book called ‘Battlefield Earth’ that was a very fun science-fiction book.” Asked about his favorite book, Mr. Romney cited the Bible. A spokesman said later it was one of Mr. Romney’s favorite novels.
Well, instead of letting the story die like he should have, he issued a clarification statement. Unfortunately, just like what happened during HunterGate last month, his clarification just added fuel to the fire.
Asked about his comments during a Fox News interview Monday that L. Ron Hubbard’s Battlefield Earth is his favorite novel, Romney said Huckleberry Finn is his favorite fiction and that the book by Hubbard, who founded Scientology, is his favorite science fiction reading.
`It’s a great science-fiction book,” Romney said. `He hadn’t founded Scientology at that point.”
But as Soren Dayton notes, this isn’t just stupid, it’s also very wrong. Hubbard founded Scientology in 1953 and Battlefield Earth was written 29 years later in 1982. That’s a big discrepancy in terms of years. Was he just confused?
So, he managed to make a slightly amusing non-story into a head scratching actual story in the span of 24 hours. Why does he always make things worse?
