Posted by
The Valletta Papers on Thursday, January 04, 2007 2:01:34 PM
News reports stated yesterday that “Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney told reporters Wednesday that he had taken the first step toward a bid for president of the United States in 2008.” Governor Romney declared: “We've filed exploratory papers today, so the process is moving forward on that front.”
The liberal media has been doing its best to prevent Romney’s candidacy from going forward. The most recent issue of The New Republic contains the latest liberal hit piece on Romney’s Mormonism. Written by Damon Linker, Taking Mormonism Seriously: The Big Test (subscription required), warns the world about Romney’s “politically perilous, religion.”
Already, there has been a flurry of responses from historians, religionists, political pundits, lawyers, and bloggers skewering Linker’s secular diatribe as ill-informed liberal prejudice. One of the first to respond was National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru. His brief post on The Corner took aim at Linker’s “secularist hysteria.” To underscore his point, Ponnuru quotes this from Linker:
Does Romney believe that the president of the Mormon Church is a genuine prophet of God? If so, how would he respond to a command from this prophet on matters of public policy? And, if his faith would require him to follow this hypothetical command, would it not be accurate to say that, under a President Romney, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints would truly be in charge of the country—with its leadership having final say on matters of right and wrong?
Ponnuru then exclaims:
Well, no, it wouldn't be accurate. For one thing—and it's no small thing, either—no U.S. president, whatever his beliefs, is "in charge of the country." Did Linker have no editor?
Rich Lowry of National Review later added his reaction to the Linker article calling it “shabby.” Lowry goes on to say:
If this is the best they can come up with, liberals are truly going to disgrace themselves over the Mormon question and do Romney a favor by making him seem the subject of unfair, “below the belt” (David Gergen's words last night) attacks. Granted Mormonism is going to strike lots of people as bizarre, but I wonder what Linker's practical concern is. What is the president of the Mormon church going to command a President Romney to do? And if this is such a worry, is there any evidence of the president of the church having issued commands robotically followed by other major Mormon politicians, Orrin Hatch, Harry Reid, Mitt Romney in his iteration as Massachusetts governor? I guess Linker would say they all were effectively lapsed Mormons. The problem now is that Romney has possibly had a secret conversion to Mormon fundamentalism! What's the evidence for this? He changed his public position on abortion and gay marriage, and “embraces [his faith] as central to his political strategy.” The worst interpretation that you can put on the former is that, as a practical politician, Romney was positioning himself for a presidential run, and I think the latter is untrue—is Romney running on his Mormonism and I just haven't noticed? Anyway, the more hit pieces like this, and the earlier they come, the better off Romney will be in the long run.
The New Republic Online carries a devastating response to Damon Linker’s article from Richard Lyman Bushman, Gouverneur Morris Professor of History Emeritus at Columbia University. Bushman recently authored what some tout as the best biography of Joseph Smith, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling. TRE also includes Linker’s rather weak and defensive reaction to Bushman. For Bushman’s part, he sees Linker’s view of Romney and Mormonism skewed by a typical liberal fascination with fanaticism. Bushman’s entire response is well worth reading, but he does not take long to get to his main criticism of Linker’s article:
Your anxiety about a Mormon politician knuckling under to a Mormon Church president replays the debate in 1904 over the seating of Apostle Reed Smoot in the United States Senate. Senators kept questioning church president Joseph F. Smith about his control of Mormon politics. Over and over, he assured the committee that he had no intention of dictating Smoot's votes in the Senate, but the questioning went on.
Now, a century later, we can judge the actual dangers of the Mormon Church to national politics from the historical record. Have any of the church presidents tried to manage Smoot, Ezra Taft Benson, Harry Reid, or Gordon Smith? The record is innocuous to say the least. There is no evidence that the church has used its influence in Washington to set up a millennial kingdom where Mormons will govern the world or even to exercise much sway on lesser matters. It's a long way from actual history to the conclusion that "under a President Romney, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints would truly be in charge of the country--with its leadership having final say on matters of right and wrong."
Mitt Romney's insistence that he will follow his own conscience rather than church dictates is not only a personal view; it is church policy. The church website makes this explicit: Elected officials who are Latter-Day Saints make their own decisions and may not necessarily be in agreement with one another or even with a publicly stated church position. While the church may communicate its views to them, as it may to any other elected official, it recognizes that these officials still must make their own choices based on their best judgment and with consideration of the constituencies whom they were elected to represent. You are going against all the evidence of history and stated church policy in contriving the purely theoretical possibility of Mormon domination. Is that not the stuff from which all paranoid projections on world history have been manufactured?
Liberals must be particularly cautious in speculating about the political intentions of religious groups because of their fascination with fanaticism. Fanaticism is one of the most firmly entrenched stereotypes in the liberal mind. The fanatic is the polar opposite of all that the liberal stands for and thus constitutes a particularly delicious enemy.
One of the most interesting criticisms of Damon Linker’s article is by Lowell C. Brown of The Article Six Blog. Brown’s article is too extensive to quote in full and contains quite a number of additional links to other reviews of Linker’s piece. Lowell Brown, a lawyer, and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, includes a few points, however, that ought to be carefully noted.
Lowell Brown agrees with Ramesh Ponnuru (linked above) that Linker’s piece is “alarmist” and full of “secularist hysteria.” This criticism in some way echoes that offered by the historian Richard Bushman, who warns:
Liberals must be particularly cautious in speculating about the political intentions of religious groups because of their fascination with fanaticism. Fanaticism is one of the most firmly entrenched stereotypes in the liberal mind. The fanatic is the polar opposite of all that the liberal stands for and thus constitutes a particularly delicious enemy.
Brown also notes that Linker's article reminds him of one of his personal rules: “Be skeptical when someone who does not belong to a particular church tries to explain its deepest nuances to you. Trust me, Linker doesn't do a very good job of that.” In this same spirit, Brown warns his readers not to be deceived “when the TNR piece refers to Linker as ‘the former editor of First Things,’ Richard John Neuhaus's journal.” Brown quips:
Brown also suggests that “Romney will suffer his true outrages at the hands of left-of-center critics, not conservative Evangelicals.” He warns:
Make no mistake, Linker comes at Romney from the Left. I doubt any self-respecting Evangelical writer would try to get away with arguing, forcefully, that Romney will be controlled by the LDS Church. And yet Linker does so in a featured article in the pages of TNR, a well-respected center-left journal. We'll see more of this, I think.
Finally, Brown reminds his readers that “Mormons are no monolithic voting bloc when it comes to Romney.” Brown states:
Linker's piece has already provoked a lengthy post in Times and Seasons, a left-leaning Mormon blog frequented by LDS members who tend to be frustrated with the institutional Church's refusal to see things their way, and who probably consider Harry Reid their kind of Mormon politician. Nothing wrong with liking Reid, of course; thats just their orientation. The post and its numerous comments will probably interest only those seriously interested in philosophy. Linker has posted extensively there himself as a guest blogger.