Forget JFK, Romney aims even higher
This week, it was hard to miss comparisons between Mitt Romney’s speech on religion in America and JFK’s historic 1960 speech on his support for church-state separation. Both speeches came from candidates facing discrimination, both were in Texas, and there was at least one picture of Romney striking a Kennedy-esque pose.
Apparently, though, the political world has been drawing on the wrong historical analogy, at least as far as Romney’s wife is concerned.
Ann Romney believes her husband’s speech on religion Thursday will go down in history, and in Las Vegas on Thursday night, she found many people who agreed with her.
“People were saying, ‘It was like George Washington,’ ‘It was the Gettysburg Address,’ ” she said in an interview just after working a room of about 120 audience members, mostly women, at a restaurant in the JW Marriott in Summerlin.
“I mean, it was unbelievable, the response I heard from the people in there that heard it today. Almost everyone said they were moved to tears” by the speech, she said.
Really? Quick quiz: name one memorable line from the speech. I watched/listened to it intently, and the only line that stands out is the bizarre and dubious assertion that “freedom requires religion.” This is a) wrong; and b) hardly the stuff of the Gettysburg Address.
Let’s hope Ann Romney wasn’t speaking on behalf of the campaign on this one. Better yet, let’s hope anyone who seriously thought Mitt’s speech was comparable to the Gettysburg Address doesn’t vote.
Really? Quick quiz: name one memorable line from the speech.
“I, uh, poo myself.”
JFK was arguing for the separation of church and state. Mittsy was arguing for the consolidation of the two.
You can’t poo yourself and brag about it, Mitt. It doesn’t work like that.
I remember him saying something about the “religion of secularism.” I did a Google search and even looked in my yellow pages to see if I could find a church in my neighborhood which preaches that “religion.” But, alas, I could find nothing.
I myself heard the implied threat “freedom requires religion”.
Sounded to my atheist ears like - no religion no freedom
Off topic:
I’ve been calling Bush a torturer for a while…
Go check out Kevin Drums’ latest:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_12/012662.php
An American president tortured: willfully and joyfully.
Go read it. Hurry.
This is the entire Gettysburg Address:
Every word is well-chosen, resonant with the Bible-aware and war-weary audience. Every sentence has a noble and dignified cadence. JFK’s speeches had some of that, too. The entire speech is easily memorized by grammar-school children.
Romney’s pathetic effort was none of that. It wasn’t effect effective at telling the rest of us what Mormonism is about or why any thinking person should accept such harebrained notions. Magic underwear? The “peep stones”, Urim and Thumim? Posthumous, involuntary baptism? Polygamy and salvation only through the paterfamilias? Sorry … all that’s secret. That may make it Republican (these days), but it’s hardly Lincolnesque, is it?
Indeed; taken literally it makes sense only as a threat to imprison the irreligious. Not that you can take literally anything Mitt-flop says.
“It was like George Washington, It was the Gettysburg Address”? —Really?
Well, I certainly agree that it was “unbelievable” and reading the text sure does move me to tears.
Stop hating guys. That speech was exactly like the Gettysburg Address. I would know, I just watched a tape of the Gettysburg Address last week.
I think Randi Rhodes of Air America had it right. Mitt Romney basically said he was going to be as intolerant of people like secularists as some of the far Right Wing. This not withstanding that he believes Jesus was in Missouri. Mitt has it all wrong about most things, you can just watch a few minutes of him and know he would be a lousy President. What kind of message is that; you have to be religious to even be thought of as a citizen?
This probably didn’t go over too well in Texas.
I hear that in the cattle states, there is a very large gay population- something like 1 gay man to every 4 straight. Something about the way they raise them- or probably their DNA- just starts turning ‘em gay by the time they’re boys.
It’s something like most men in Texas have experienced gay sex at least 2 times by age 25? That’s how prevalent it is.
That’s why a man from Texas will take a loooooonngg look for a second at another man when he sees him- he’s “sizing him up,” thinking over whether or not he wants to have relations with him.
Pop Quiz:::
Guess what religion the Marriott’s are?
“… in the JW Marriott” caught my eye.
An amazing coincidence, don’t ya think???
I hear that in the cattle states, there is a very large gay population- something like 1 gay man to every 4 straight.
That’s not counting the African American population, and the Mexican population, though, both of which tend to be less homosexual in that state.
Hey Swan, I’ve heard that the reason that so many in Texas are rather—peculiar is that the state is covered in cow poop. The stuff percolates down into the aquifers and ends up in the ‘potable’ water, resulting in so many Bushes—and obviously makes real men gay.
Ann Romney is a Stepford-wife. So, of course, she doesn’t have a single brain cell in her head.
I thought the speech was brilliant, as did everyone I know who heard it.
Mitt is right.
See for yourself:
http://mitt-tv.mittromney.com/?showid=718280
“and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”. Sorry Abe, it’s long gone, and it was your chicken shit party that killed it.
JFK: “There are too many slums in America and not enough schools.”
Magic Underpants Man: “There’s too much church-state separation in America and not enough religious displays in public buildings.”
Enough said.
Brother Romney’s speech was superior to the well known speech of gratitude presented by Golden Grigg which he gave in 1954 when given the award for Best Fast Food of the Year for inventing Tater Tots. That will bring tears to your eyes.
However, Brother Romney’s speech wasn’t as good as the one given in 1928 by Hennrietta Winkler at the American Homing Pigeon Society which expressed appreciation for the courage and difficulties faced by Homing Pigeons in WW I. Not even close really.
Sister Romney needs to get a grip on herself.
Obstreperousness requires pomegranates just as pomegranates require obstreperousness.
This was not the Gettysburg Address—it was more like Bambi meets Godzilla—and compared to JFK, Mittens is no Godzilla….
Many people of all faiths and walks of life have publicly acknowledged this speech moved them to tears. It also moved them to a higher level of a vision for America. You may not share the same view point; you may not have even seen or heard the speech. However that does not change the sincere effect it had on many others.
Why do you feel a need to be disrespectful to people who don’t agree with you?
BORED them to tears, you mean.
Because, Open Mind, I am sick and fucking tired of these types of numbnuts running the country. Anyone inspired by the Mittster’s speech is someone I hope to keep far, far away from power.
Please! It wasn’t even close! I loved Washington, and when he gave the Gettysburg Address he.. wait, nevermind.
This speech will be studied for years by political science students along side Kennedy’s speech. Romney exposed the fallacy of Kennedy’s absolute wall extremism.
Romney did not say he would be intolerant of secularists, just that he DISAGREED with unbelievers bent on intolerantly secularizing all aspects of American culture. Disagreeing is not oppression, folks. In fact he said, “Tolerance would be a shallow principle indeed if we only tolerate those we agreed with.” Don’t worry, just because Romney disagrees with secularists doesn’t meant he is breaking out the rack.
If you want to argue the freedom religion interdependence, take it up with Samuel Adams.
Mormon and mainstream Christian theologians have repeatedly plowed the field of doctrinal differences for 150 years and no one has “won” the debate. Romney’s trying to address this theologicial debate would be like taking a an icepick to this already well plowed field.
This speech is intellectually unassailable. Efforts to do so are easily knocked down.
To Burro:
I was interested in your quote:
On December 8th, 2007 at 5:50 pm, burro said:
“Brother Romney’s speech was superior to the well known speech of gratitude presented by Golden Grigg which he gave in 1954 when given the award for Best Fast Food of the Year for inventing Tater Tots. That will bring tears to your eyes.”
I am Golden Grigg’s son. Where can I find the speech you referenced?