Unkosher Jesus- Red Meat Commentary With a Side of Cheese: Mitt Romney

Lloyd Bentsen's "You're no JFK" Zinger

The late, great Senator Lloyd Bentsen (D-TX), ladies and gentlemen! What a great zinger he used to nail Dan Quayle and keep him from getting away with shamelessly trying to compare himself to the late President John F. Kennedy.

That same zinger would have worked in reference to another Republican White House hopeful this week. I'm referring to the one and only Mitt Romney who, when confronted by the surging poll numbers of another conservative white male evangelical Christian, decided that it was time to publicly embrace his Mormon faith and let all America know what he's made of.

The speech was made from the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library in Houston. Now, given that George the Elder was a one-term wonder and much-reviled by the rabid conservative base of the Republican Party, you have to wonder why Mitt chose to give his speech from Poppy's place, and not from the Temple of the Great and Powerful Ron in California. Actually, it's not so hard to figure out, given that Romney and his staff have been telegraphing how his speech would mirror John F. Kennedy's epochal speech on his Catholic faith and his vision for America, given on Sept. 12, 1960, before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association.

So, is Mitt a Latter Day JFK, or the Second Coming of Dan Quayle? Here's how some of his comments and observations stack up against those of JFK.

Freedom of Religion AND Freedom From Religion

JFK: "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 (emphasis added)."

Mitt: "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone."

Unkosher Jesus sez: Kennedy had the balls to acknowledge that the bedrock strength of American liberty lies not in its supposed Judeo-Christian moorings, but rather in the fact that it is a value that can be equally espoused and exercised by the religious and non-religious alike. American Freedom does NOT rely or depend upon religion: it depends upon each citizen's commitment to the principles espoused in the Constitution. This in turn does not require religious faith on the part of any citizen who supports these. Mitt's nonsense line that "freedom requires religion" is nothing but a shamless, open-mouthed kiss for fundamentalist, Evangelical Christianity.

A TRULY United States

JFK: "I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all."

Mitt: "Almost 50 years ago another candidate from Massachusetts explained that he was an American running for president, not a Catholic running for president. Like him, I am an American running for president. I do not define my candidacy by my religion. A person should not be elected because of his faith nor should he be rejected because of his faith."

Unkosher Jesus sez: Mitt is dishonestly distorting the issue at hand here. No, you do not define your campaign for president by your religion (Mormonism, right?), but by religion itself. Romney's self-comparison to JFK is disingenuous, in this case because Kennedy avoided the use of religious themes altogether in his campaign for the White House. He enunciated a vision of a truly United States, whereas Romney's vision of America is clearly and explicitly one where religious citizens are valued more than those who espouse no religious creed or belong to any established faith. I guess some animals are more equal than others, huh Mitt?

Faith As Personal, Private Conviction

JFK: "But I do not intend to apologize for these views to my critics of either Catholic or Protestant faith, nor do I intend to disavow either my views or my church in order to win this election."

Mitt: "There are some for whom these commitments are not enough. They would prefer it if I would simply distance myself from my religion, say that it is more a tradition than my personal conviction, or disavow one or another of its precepts. That I will not do. I believe in my Mormon faith and I endeavor to live by it. My faith is the faith of my fathers - I will be true to them and to my beliefs."

Unkosher Jesus sez: Funny, for a candidate who has staked so much of his campaign and presidential persona upon the importance of religious faith, Romney didn't spend any of his time during his twenty minute speech actually discussing or describing any of these beliefs at all. Again, his aping of JFK is disingenuous, as Kennedy scrupulously avoided the use of religious imagery and themes as means to winning votes.

Fighting for American Freedom

JFK: "This is the kind of America I believe in, and this is the kind I fought for in the South Pacific, and the kind my brother died for in Europe."

Mitt: [Cue crickets.]

Unkosher Jesus sez: This would be the place where I would write about how Mitt reflected upon his military service and how he views this experience as the time when the ideals of American freedom were,... well, you get the idea. Mitt didn't serve in the United States military. He was draft age during the Vietnam War, but, like most of his Republican brethren, somehow avoided fighting in that conflict (or serving in the military at all). He seemed to have had other priorities, just like his Chicken Hawk Vice President, Dick Cheney. And, just for the record, none of his five supposedly able-bodied sons is serving in Iraq.

Know Your Founding Fathers

JFK: "And in fact, this is the kind of America for which our forefathers died, when they fled here to escape religious test oaths that denied office to members of less favored churches; when they fought for the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom."

Mitt: "There are some who may feel that religion is not a matter to be seriously considered in the context of the weighty threats that face us. If so, they are at odds with the nation's founders, for they, when our nation faced its greatest peril, sought the blessings of the Creator. And further, they discovered the essential connection between the survival of a free land and the protection of religious freedom."

Unkosher Jesus sez: Mitt has been taking "Straw Man" lessons from W. Who, exactly, has said that "religion is not a matter to be seriously considered in the context of weighty threats"? Who the hell is he talking about? This is a particularly defensive and divisive comment to make for someone who is trying to show that his religious faith does not pose any type of threat to American values. Worse yet, Romney misrepresents the Founding Fathers' notion of religious freedom, intentionally omitting the part about equal freedom not to practice religion. Maybe I'll give JFK the last word on that one:

"I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation, or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office."

So, is Mitt a Latter Day JFK? Not even close. Is he the Second Coming of Dan Quayle? He's worse! Quayle was truly ignorant and shallow, while Mitt is running a campaign premised on the hope that most voters are.

- Doug L.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy: A Tribute

FOR FURTHER REFERENCE:

Text of Romney's "faith in America" speech (Salt Lake Tribune, December 6, 2007)

The Mormons (PBS Frontline)

Bloggers on Mitt Romney's big speech (Slate.com, December 6, 2007)

Mitt's Big Speech (WashingtonMonthly.com, December 6, 2007)

Holy Nonsense, by Christopher Hitchens (Slate.com, December 6, 2007)

JPTV: What I'm Watching Tomorrow (Time.com, December 5, 2007)

Romney Loves All Gods, Hates All Seculars (Wonkette.com, December 6, 2007)

On Faith Panel: Mitt Romney's Religion Speech (Washington Post.com, December 6, 2007)

The Life of Romney, by Bruce Reed (The Has Been, Slate.com, July 5, 2007)

JFK In History: John F. Kennedy and PT109 (JFKLibrary.org)

Little-Known U.S. Document Signed by President Adams Proclaims America's Government Is Secular (Early America.com, Summer 1997)

"The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much." Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad

"It's the lie of evolution that all man are just evolved and that they're all equal, and that all creatures are equal."

"People recognize something's going to happen, and they'd better get ready." - "Rev." Tim LaHaye

E Pluribus Unum. That's still the unofficial motto of the United States, right? I mean, I know that 9/11 was supposed to have "changed everything", but I didn't think that actually meant EVERYTHING. I pull a quarter out of my pocket, there it is, E Pluribus Unum. The last time I checked, this phrase is still found on the Great Seal of the United States. But do we even remember what it means these days? Of many, one. Can we honestly say that at this moment in our history, this phrase fittingly describes the state of our union?

This question confronts us as our nation continues to reel from the aftershocks of 9/11, which are perpetuated by mendacious, opportunistic politicians who exploit the memory of that horrible day in order to harvest votes and maintain power for its own sake. Mitt Romney recently stated that he would not appoint a Muslim to his prospective Cabinet, because "based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified." This from a member of the Mormon Church, United States membership of which currently stands at approximately 5.7 million. By Mitt's own informal reckoning process, American Mormons, like their Muslim brethren, fall well short of mathematically qualifying for Cabinet consideration (at least according to Kevin Drum of The Washington Monthly). Romney has since tried to spin the content and character of his comments, but I think it is fair to speculate that Romney's motives for marginalizing American Muslims might have something to do with playing to anti-Muslim sentiment among the Evangelical Christian voters he is so desperate to court.

Now, there is no denying that the 9/11 attacks radically impacted America's relationship with the Islamic world. And when the Saudi embassy funds a private Muslim school just outside of Washington, DC, and won't allow an independent inspection of the textbooks it uses, even the casual observer may grow alarmed and in turn begin to view all Muslims on American soil with suspicion.

It isn't the casual observer who is sounding off with hysterical diatribes, however. A cursory Google search with the phrase "americans hate muslims" generated the following links, among others:

Americans hate working class Muslims (Rants and Raves: San Francisco Craigs List, November 27, 2007)

Arabs, Muslims all hate America, even if they don't say it (Daniel Pipes.org)

Why Do Americans Hate Muslims? (Islam Forum: Topix.com, November 24, 2007)

Are we on the brink of WWIII? (Tim LaHaye)

Enough. Incendiary comments and attitudes, like the inferno they are forged in, suck all of the oxygen out of the air and stifle healthy discussion of alternatives that are available right here, right now. The majority of Americans are not born with a hard-wired predisposition to hate Muslims any more than Muslims are born hard-wired to hate America. The majority of Americans OPPOSE the very notion of transforming America into a theocratic police state. While we were all busy arguing about who is more patriotic, about whose religion is better or right, others have been working to lay the foundation for a fully-functioning pluralistic society, the kind that the American nation was founded to sustain in the first place. Those of us who count ourselves as members of the interfaith community need to get on board with this. If we value notions such as freedom to worship and freedom from worship; if we value the notion of the Common Good and the types of institutions it takes to sustain this; if we value participating in and contributing to a society where, as Dr. Eboo Patel puts it, all members enjoy equal dignity and mutual loyalty, then we need to put our money where our collective mouth is and do what it takes to make pluralism more than an unofficial motto for our country. There are some links to resources below that will hopefully get you started. The YouTube video with Dr. Patel is over an hour long, but if you've got the time it is definitely worth watching and listening to. So, read, inform yourself, and then let's get to work. There is no time to waste, and we have a lot of ground to make up. Salam.

- Doug L.

Dr. Eboo Patel: The Faith Line