Dispatches from the Culture Wars

My readers have probably noticed by now that I'm pretty cynical about politics. I don't think it's possible to be elected president, from either party, without being seriously corrupt; you simply cannot raise the money necessary to mount a serious campaign without selling your soul. Nor do I think anyone who gets elected could possibly be considered honest or principled; our political system punishes such traits rather than reward them.

But even by the extremely low standards of our current electoral system, Mitt Romney strikes me as exceptionally slimy and dishonest. He doesn't just change his positions, he does total 180 degree flips to the other side after swearing that he would never do so. Tim Russert, to my great surprise, actually did a good job of nailing him on this on Meet the Press; the only thing he could have done better was to laugh in Romney's face over this absurd rationalizations of those flips.

But first, let's see him try to slime his way out of the logical implications of his claim that liberty and morality require religion:

GOV. ROMNEY: Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: "Freedom requires religion." Can you have freedom without organized religion?

GOV. ROMNEY: Well, I was paraphrasing and underlining, if you will, a quote that I'd just read from John Adams, who said that our constitutional form of government in this nation would require morality and freedom to be able to survive. And, of course, George Washington said virtually the same thing, that we were a nation that required a level of morality and religion in order to be a great nation and survive. And I think there's truth to that, that the--that the great experiment of democracy, the experiment of America's freedom has, as its basis, a sense of morality and a recognition that religious foundations are part of that, that morality.

And so I believe that long-term for America to remain a great nation and to lead the world, we must have a recognition of our religious base. Now, that's, of course, not a particular denomination. But the, the founders of the nation, coming from different faiths and different persuasions, nonetheless all believed that the, the creator was an instrumental part of the founding of this nation. And I believe that that part of history should be taught, I believe that we should recognize the divine with everything from celebrations in the town square, with menorahs and nativity scenes, as well as in our history books, talking about the fact that the creators did believe in a fundamental sense of, of the divine. And, and recognizing that that gives us a moral code, a suggestion of what is right and wrong, that is--that is, in many respects, unique in the world.

We, we believe, as a nation, from the founding of this nation, that God gave the individual certain inalienable rights. That's not a constitutional guarantee, that's not a policy guarantee, it's a guarantee from our creator. And, of course, the corollary is that, that if we're all children of the same God, that we have a duty to one another, to care for one another, Americans first and the people of the world second. And, and finally, that freedom is something which is--which is of a, an eternal nature. And so all of these things, I think, are part of what makes America unique and part of what gives us confidence that freedom can ring forever in, in this--in this land.

MR. RUSSERT: But when you say freedom requires religion, can you be a moral person and be an atheist?

GOV. ROMNEY: Oh, oh, of course. Oh, of course.

MR. RUSSERT: And participate in freedom?

GOV. ROMNEY: Oh, of course. Yes, this...

MR. RUSSERT: So freedom doesn't require religion?

GOV. ROMNEY: Well, this--the, the context was talking about the, the founding of the nation and the, the sense in this case of John Adams describing the fact that our constitutional form of government and this American experiment required morality, which in turn required religion. And, and yet, of course, on an individual basis, you have many individuals of great morality and--that, that don't have any particular faith.

An absolutely ridiculous position. Morality requires religion, yet those without religion can be moral. Is there any evidence that religious people actually behave more ethically than non-religious people? Of course not. The only possible way he can make this consistent is to take the Straussian position that religion, even if it's false, is necessary to keep "the rabble" in line, while the enlightened few can be moral atheists through sheer force of will. But Romney doesn't take that position, so he's left with a contradictory claim.

Then Russert presses him on the fact that the Mormon church didn't allow blacks to become clergy until 1978 and Romney tells this laughable story:

MR. RUSSERT: You, you raise the issue of color of skin. In 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court, Brown vs. Board of Education, desegregated all our public schools. In 1964 civil rights laws giving full equality to black Americans. And yet it wasn't till 1978 that the Mormon church decided to allow blacks to participate fully. Here was the headlines in the papers in June of '78. "Mormon Church Dissolves Black Bias. Citing new revelation from God, the president of the Mormon Church decreed for the first time black males could fully participate in church rites." You were 31 years old, and your church was excluding blacks from full participation. Didn't you think, "What am I doing part of an organization that is viewed by many as a racist organization?"

GOV. ROMNEY: I'm very proud of my faith, and it's the faith of my fathers, and I certainly believe that it is a, a faith--well, it's true and I love my faith. And I'm not going to distance myself in any way from my faith. But you can see what I believed and what my family believed by looking at, at our lives. My dad marched with Martin Luther King. My mm was a tireless crusader for civil rights. You may recall that my dad walked out of the Republican convention in 1964 in San Francisco in part because Barry Goldwater, in his speech, gave my dad the impression that he was someone who was going to be weak on civil rights. So my dad's reputation, my mom's and my own has always been one of reaching out to people and not discriminating based upon race or anything else. And so those are my fundamental core beliefs, and I was anxious to see a change in, in my church.

I can remember when, when I heard about the change being made. I was driving home from, I think, it was law school, but I was driving home, going through the Fresh Pond rotary in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I heard it on the radio, and I pulled over and, and literally wept. Even at this day it's emotional, and so it's very deep and fundamental in my, in my life and my most core beliefs that all people are children of God. My faith has always told me that. My faith has also always told me that, in the eyes of God, every individual was, was merited the, the fullest degree of happiness in the hereafter, and I, and I had no question in my mind that African-Americans and, and blacks generally, would have every right and every benefit in the hereafter that anyone else had and that God is no respecter of persons.

Right. This change was so "deep and fundamental" and the experience of pulling over and sobbing so important to him that he doesn't remember that he had graduated law school 3 years before the Mormon church changed this. By 1978, he was working for an investment company. But here's where it gets even better:

GOV. ROMNEY: I've told you exactly where I stand. My view is that there--there's, there's no discrimination in the eyes of God, and I could not have been more pleased than to see the change that occurred.

Except for one tiny little thing: as a Mormon, Romney believes that the leaders of that church - they actually call them 'prophets' - have a direct line to God and that what they declare on Earth comes straight from God. Yet prior to 1978, every single one of those 'prophets', including Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, boldly declared that God commanded discrimination against blacks. Brigham Young himself declared it the will of God that anyone who has an interracial relationship must be immediately put to death:

"Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so."

And of course, Romney also believes that the Book of Mormon is the word of God; the same Book of Mormon that says quite plainly that black people are vile people being punished by God:

"And I beheld, after they had dwindled in unbelief they became a dark and loathsome and a filthy people, full of idleness and all manner of abominations."

Again, there's a clear contradiction here. You can't believe that God speaks through the prophets of the Mormon Church and sent the Book of Mormon as his word and believe that "there's no discrimination in the eyes of God." Unless you want to take the position that God, for thousands of years, was all for discriminating against blacks and even killing anyone who dared to love them and mate with them, then suddenly in 1978 he changed his mind. These can't both be true, Mitt. Pick one.

Then Russert questions Romney on some of his changes of position, and you really have to be impressed by the sheer audacity of it all. Wait till you see some of these direct quotes:

MR. RUSSERT: I want to take abortion first. I participated in your debate in 2002 when you ran for governor of Massachusetts. I asked you about that issue, and this was your response. Let's watch.

GOV. ROMNEY: My position has been the same throughout my political career, and it goes back to the days of 1970. There was a woman who was running for political office, U.S. Senate. She took a very bold and courageous stand in 1970, and that was in a conservative state. That was that a woman should have the right to make her own choice as to whether or not to have an abortion. Her name was Lenore Romney, she was my mom. I will preserve and protect a woman's right to choose and am devoted and dedicated to honoring my word in that regard.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: "Devoted and dedicated" to honoring your word. When you ran for the Senate against Ted Kennedy, you were asked the same question. This was your response.

(Videotape)

GOV. ROMNEY: Many, many years ago I had a dear close family relative that was very close to me who passed away from an illegal abortion. It is since that time my mother and my family have been committed to the belief that we can believe as we want, but we will not force our beliefs on others on that matter.

Offscreen Voice: Thank you, Mr...

GOV. ROMNEY: And you will not see me wavering on that.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: You--will not see you wavering on that issue. You now have said you support the 2004 Republican Party platform, which says this: "We say the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We" suggest "a human life amendment to the Constitution." Such amendment would ban abortions all across the country. Why such a dramatic and profound change after pledging never to waiver on a woman's right to choose?

GOV. ROMNEY: Well, you know, Tim, I was always personally opposed to abortion, as I think almost everyone in this nation is. And the question for me was, what is the role of government? And it was quite theoretical and, and philosophical to consider what the role of government should be in this regard, and I felt that the Supreme Court had spoken and that government shouldn't be involved and let people make their own decision. And that all made a lot of sense to me.

And then I became governor and the theoretical became reality, if you will. A bill came to my desk which related to the preservation of life. In this case, it happened to be a, a bill that would authorize cloning, which was--as well as embryo farming--which would be creating new embryos for the purpose of, of research and then destroying them. And, and I brought in people from across the country to talk about this bill, from theologians to scientists, provost of Harvard University and others, and, and talked about it. And, and I, I recognized, as I went through that effort, that I simply could not be part of an effort that would cause the destruction of human lift. And I didn't hide from that change of heart. I wrote an op-ed piece in The Boston Globe, described my view that I am pro-life, described why I had changed to become pro-life. I recognize it's a change. You can, you can find, you know, many, many instances of my indicating my position previous to that time of being effectively pro-choice. I didn't call myself pro-choice, but my position was effectively pro-choice. And, and, and that position changed. It changed at that point. And every piece of legislation which came to my desk in the coming years as the governor, I came down on the side of preserving the sanctity of life.

And of course, you won't see him wavering on that issue. Well, you won't see him wavering on it until the general election, when he has to appear more moderate and then we'll hear about the nuances in his position. Like this, when asked why, if he'd so famously had this conversion, he didn't bother to try and change the law in Massachusetts:

MR. RUSSERT: You didn't try to change the Massachusetts abortion laws.

GOV. ROMNEY: I'd committed to the people of Massachusetts that I would not change the laws one way or the other, and I honored that commitment. But each law that was brought to my desk attempted to expand abortion rights and, in each case, I vetoed that effort. I also promoted abstinence education in our schools. I vetoed an effort, for instance, to give young women a morning after pill, they call it, who did not have prescriptions--young, very young girls, without age limitation. So I took action to preserve the sanctity of life. But I did not violate my word, of course.

But Mitt, you also said that you would never waver in your defense of a woman's right to choose and we see what that commitment was worth. He seems to be quite selective in which promises he is required to keep. This isn't Paul having a vision on the road to Damascus, this is Romney reading poll results of likely Republican voters on the road to the White House.

Go read the rest of the transcript. On issue after issue, including gun control and immigration, he has taken incredibly contradictory positions on all of them. And his rationalizations for those changes in position are just plain laughable.