Tag: Mitt Romney

Brooks captures Romney perfectly

The most astute commentary I’ve seen on Mitt Romney’s religion speech is David Brooks’ column in today’s New York Times. Brooks starts out on a positive note, writing, “It is not always easy to blend an argument for religious liberty with an argument for religious assertiveness, but Romney did it well.” But then Brooks brings down the hammer:

When this country was founded, James Madison envisioned a noisy public square with different religious denominations arguing, competing and balancing each other’s passions. But now the landscape of religious life has changed. Now its most prominent feature is the supposed war between the faithful and the faithless. Mitt Romney didn’t start this war, but speeches like his both exploit and solidify this divide in people’s minds. The supposed war between the faithful and the faithless has exacted casualties.

The first casualty is the national community. Romney described a community yesterday. Observant Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Jews and Muslims are inside that community. The nonobservant are not. There was not even a perfunctory sentence showing respect for the nonreligious.

That’s exactly right. Indeed, on “Imus in the Morning,” CBS News analyst Jeff Greenfield noted that even President Bush has taken pains not to kiss off non-believers the way Romney did yesterday.

The normally astute Peter Canellos writes in the Boston Globe today that Romney’s speech was aimed “at all the people of the United States. With its breadth of spirit, it was the most presidential moment of the 2008 campaign.”

I have to disagree. It was a good speech, but hardly a great one. And it was deliberately divisive, aimed not at the American people as a whole but at those evangelical Christians who are thinking of voting for Mike Huckabee.

Taking Romney on faith

A few quick observations on Mitt Romney’s just-concluded speech on religious freedom:

1. The atmospherics. It was well-written and well-delivered. No surprise. But it’s interesting to ponder how much more compelling Romney seems giving a speech than he does participating in debates with 57 other candidates, a format that somehow diminishes him. The same could be said of Barack Obama.

2. Hypocrisy watch. Romney argues for the right of Mormons to be full partners in the political process, but he has no problem throwing non-believers over the side of the boat:

And you can be certain of this: Any believer in religious freedom, any person who has knelt in prayer to the Almighty, has a friend and ally in me. And so it is for hundreds of millions of our countrymen: we do not insist on a single strain of religion — rather, we welcome our nation’s symphony of faith.

Govenor, I’m not an atheist, and I don’t mind seeing crèches on public property. But, on a more substantive level, freedom of religion also means freedom from religion.

Of course, we’re also still awaiting word on whether Romney actually said he would not name a Muslim to his Cabinet if he’s elected president.

3. Will it work? Romney’s speech has been endlessly compared to John Kennedy’s 1960 address to Protestant ministers in Houston. Kennedy, though, had a far easier task — persuading the public that a Catholic politician could embrace the separation of church and state.

Romney’s goal was to persuade the evangelical Christians who vote disproportionately in Republican primaries that a Mormon is enough like them that they should support him rather than waste their vote on a longshot candidate like Mike Huckabee. The problem is that many of these people will not vote for a candidate who isn’t a Christian. And — sorry, Governor — Mormonism differs sufficiently from the central tenets of Christianity that you could make a very respectable case that Mormons are not Christians.

Romney’s been running away from Massachusetts ever since he decided he wanted to be president. He may be about to learn that Blue America, where we truly don’t care what your religious beliefs are (as long as they don’t run up against point #4), is far more hospitable to a Mormon than are the red-state Christians with whom he is trying to make common cause.

4. The real issue. Romney said repeatedly that there should be no religious prerequisite for public office. Indeed, the Constitution says that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” But all that means is that Congress can’t pass a law banning a member of a particular religion from running for office.

In fact, there is a perfectly legitimate religious test, and the voters will apply that test. I’ll summarize it as follows: Are a candidate’s religious views compatible with the office of president as defined by the Constitution?

Personally, I can think of a few examples where that would not be the case.

We know, for instance, that there are some very extreme Christians who favor environmental collapse, or even world war, because they think such a calamity would bring on the Apocalypse predicted in the Book of Revelations. A candidate who held such views could not be disqualified by law, but he could certainly be disqualified by the voters on Election Day.

Romney himself took a few moments this morning to bash “radical Islamists.” Obviously the embrace of violent jihad would be completely incompatible with running for the presidency.

Finally, in January of this year, The New Republic ran an essay (PDF) arguing that Mormonism’s core beliefs — especially as they relate to the United States’ special status in the divine plan — are worrisome enough with respect to how a Mormon president might govern that we shouldn’t shy away from asking some tough questions.

I’m not sure I agree with that proposition, but I do know this: Romney’s speech today was designed to prevent such questions from being asked. The next few weeks will tell us how well it worked.

Buenos días, Mitt!

The Boston Globe’s hit on Mitt Romney today for continuing to use a landscaping company that hires illegal immigrants is both unfair and fair.

It’s unfair because the story suggests that Romney should be held to a ridiculous standard. If you hire a private contractor to work at your home, you don’t take steps to make sure the contractor’s employees have legal status. Romney says he made it clear to the contractor a year ago that he’d have to clean up his act. And, frankly, that’s as far as any homeowner should have to go.

But it’s also fair, because Romney has been so flagrantly hypocritical on this issue, taking an interest only after his presidential campaign had begun. There is virtually no evidence out there that, prior to last year, Romney’s thought process on illegal immigration ever went much deeper than greeting the folks who mowed his lawn with a cheery “buenos días.”

“Not since Gary Hart told reporters to ‘follow me around’ has a presidential candidate displayed such an amazing degree of arrogance, indifference and abject stupidity,” writes the Outraged Liberal today.

Well, I’m not sure I’d go that far, but Mr. O.L.’s entire outraged post is worth reading.

There’s no doubt that Romney is going to take a pounding in the days and weeks ahead. It’s unfair. But given his nasty rhetoric about illegal immigrants — rhetoric that I’m not even sure he believes — he deserves what’s coming to him.

Judge Tuttman and the truth

The easy vilification of Superior Court Judge Kathe Tuttman, the Mitt Romney-appointed judge who freed Daniel Tavares, is looking more problematic by the day. Tavares, who’d been imprisoned for killing his mother, is now suspected of murdering a couple in Washington state.

Earlier this week, the Boston Herald reported that an oversight by Tuttman’s office several years ago, when she was an Essex County prosecutor, resulted in a child rapist’s being improperly released from prison rather than recommitted in civil court.

But, now, Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett tells Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly reporter Noah Schaffer that Tuttman was being “magnanimous” when she took the rap in a 2005 interview with the Daily Item of Lynn. And an anonymous source informs Schaffer that the paperwork had landed on the desk of an assistant court clerk and died there. As a prosecutor, Tuttman would have had no authority over a clerk, who was an employee of the judiciary.

Also, in an editorial, Lawyers Weekly presents a strong argument that the bail hearing leading to Tavares’ release was, from the point of view of any judge, absolutely routine, and that if there was any fault to be apportioned, it was a failure on the law-enforcement side to place all relevant facts before Judge Tuttman.

There’s also an especially nice description of a Herald column by WTKK (96.9 FM) talk-show host Michael Graham: “a lazy rant … that was bereft of any sort of research whatsoever,” leading up to “a caveman-level conclusion: that Tuttman had been appointed only because Romney wanted to add some ‘chicks’ to the bench.”

Finally, Jonathan Saltzman and Keith O’Brien report in the Boston Globe today that the Bristol County district attorney’s office had evidence that Tavares had killed a Fall River woman — Tavares actually led officials to her grave in 2000 — but that Tavares was never charged.

Add this earlier report that the Worcester County DA’s office had been lax in tracking down Tavares, and you begin to see that blaming Tuttman for what happened — or, at least, blaming Tuttman solely for what happened — is ridiculous.

The Governor’s Council strikes again

How pathetic is this? The Boston Herald reports today that two members of the Governor’s Council are unhappy they were not told about Kathe Tuttman’s role in letting a child rapist go before they approved her nomination as a judge. In fact, they have no one but themselves to blame for their ignorance.

Tuttman, of course, is the judge at the center of the controversy over convicted killer Daniel Tavares, who was released and is now the suspect in the murder of a young couple in Washington state. Mitt Romney, who appointed her to the bench when he was governor, is now demanding her resignation — despite a plethora of evidence that Tavares was released because of a systemic breakdown involving several public officials, as Shelley Murphy reports in the Boston Globe.

According to today’s Herald story (link now fixed), by Dave Wedge and Jessica Van Sack, Councilor Marilyn Petitto Devaney says she is “shocked and outraged” that the council was never told about the earlier incident, while Councilor Mary-Ellen Manning has joined her in asking Gov. Deval Patrick to take steps to remove Tuttman from the bench.

Yet, as Wedge wrote yesterday, the Daily Item of Lynn reported on the child rapist’s release in 2005, six months before Tuttman, then an Essex County prosecutor, had even been nominated as a judge. Referring to the fact that the rapist, Daniel Parra, had been released because Tuttman’s office had missed a deadline to recommit him civilly, Tuttman told the Item: “In terms of our own internal protocol, we have, since this occurred, developed a system to keep a case from falling through the cracks again.” (In today’s Item, Thor Jourgensen reports that Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett is defending Tuttman’s track record.)

And get this: Manning lives in Peabody, which is part of the Item’s circulation area. Shouldn’t Governor’s Council members read the papers in their district?

The Herald story also quotes Mitt Romney’s lieutenant governor, Kerry Healey, as saying the administration didn’t know nothin’. “I wish that sort of information had been more available during the public hearing process,” Healey said. “It seems this process, despite its thoroughness, and I can attest to its thoroughness, failed.” Hmmm … I would assume that the customary definition of “thoroughness” would include checking the clips.

So why exactly do we have a Governor’s Council? It is nothing but a useless holdover from Colonial times — a third branch of the Legislature, when, in fact, two are quite enough. Let the Senate hold hearings and vote on judicial appointments. The senators might not be any better at it than the councilors. But they’re better known and more accountable than members of the Governor’s Council are.

Maybe the hearings would even get some attention — which would make it more likely that stories such as the one involving Tuttman, hidden in plain sight, would come to light before any vote was taken.

Romney claims victim status

Now why didn’t Michael Dukakis think of this? If only the Duke’s campaign had whispered that Willie Horton “had once threatened to assassinate him,” as Mitt Romney’s people want us to believe was the case with Daniel Tavares Jr., he might have been elected president.

More: Not to be overly flip. Here’s something that’s on Tavares’ Massachusetts Department of Correction release form: “In February 2006, he threatened to kill the governor and attorney general of MA, Bristol County Sheriff, and other law enforcement officials when released.” So, no, the Romney folks aren’t making this up.

Romney switches on abortion — again

You wouldn’t think it was possible, but Mitt Romney has changed his position on abortion rights yet again.

Just two weeks ago he said he favored a constitutional amendment to ban abortion nationwide. Now he says he’s wants to see Roe v. Wade overturned, after which the matter would be left up to the states.

The Romney campaign, naturally, denies that there’s any inconsistency here. And there isn’t: You never have any idea what position he’s going to take, and he’s been absolutely consistent about that. (Via the Weekly Dig.)

The 10th annual Muzzle Awards

It seems hard to believe, but today is the 10th anniversary of the Phoenix Muzzle Awards. In 1998, at the suggestion of Harvey Silverglate, I began compiling an annual Fourth of July roundup of outrages against free speech and civil liberties in New England.

This year, for the second year in a row, Mitt Romney leads the pack. This time it’s for refusing to provide security last September at a Harvard speech by former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami — a routine matter, but the then-governor decided to make a grandstanding play instead. If the Boston Police Department had not stepped forward so that Khatami could deliver his address, Romney would have handed the reformist Khatami’s enemies back home a considerable victory.

There’s also some breaking Muzzle news. In the last item, I single out Boston England High School headmaster Jose Duarte for placing longtime substitute teacher Jeffrey Herman on a “do not call” list — retaliation, according to Herman, for Herman’s speaking out against the city’s $1.2 million Junior ROTC program. Just yesterday, the ACLU of Massachusetts announced (PDF) that the city would pay a $15,000 settlement to Herman without admitting any wrongdoing on Duarte’s part.

A controversy over a 2006 Muzzle was recently resolved as well. Last year I criticized the Massachusetts State Police for threatening a Leominster political activist named Mary T. Jean for posting on the Web a streaming video of a man being arrested in his home. The video — captured by a “baby cam” in the arrestee’s home — had been posted with his permission, but the state-police troopers somehow saw it as a violation of their rights.

On June 22, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled in favor of Jean. As media lawyer Robert Ambrogi reported on his blog:

The court ruled that the First Amendment prevents law enforcement officials from interfering with an individual’s Internet posting of an audio and video recording of an arrest and warrantless search of a private residence, even though the individual had reason to know the recording was made illegally.

The principle here is particularly important, because Jean used her Web site to criticize then-Worcester County district attorney John Conte, and because she claimed the video showed troopers assigned to Conte’s office making a warrantless arrest. This is political speech, pure and simple, and thus deserving of the highest level of First Amendment protection.

Photo of Romney (cc) by MyTwistedLens. Some rights served.