I hate this time of the month. The jobs figures come out and good or bad, you know immediately what the Democrats are going to say and how the Republicans will respond. But ZeroHedge has the most interesting take–so far. Not sure what to think of it, given my lack of experience and knowledge in the area of employment statistics. But according to ZeroHedge,
it appears that the people not in the labor force exploded by an unprecedented record 1.2 million. No, that’s not a typo: 1.2 million people dropped out of the labor force in one month! (emphasis in the original)
Mormonism just rose in my estimation. I was talking to Joanna Brooks–a Mormon who writes the Ask Mormon Girl advice column and is the author of The Book of Mormon Girl– when conversation turned to the afterlife. The news she brought was good even for us non-Mormons . . .
The Apostle Paul could have been thinking about the Republican chattering class as he scribbled his letter to the Ephesians:
That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. (Eph. 4:14)
Substitute “another Romney misstep” for “doctrine,” and you get my meaning. Fortunately, cooler heads occasionally talk as well. And on a long, hard slog–and the campaign for the presidency is certainly that–cooler heads almost always prevail.
Today on The Corner, Ramesh Ponnuru writes about the move by Republicans in the House and Senate to restore religious liberties abrogated recently by the Obama Administration, which
has decided to require religious institutions that offer insurance to cover contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients, whether or not they object to covering them. Churches would be exempt but not, for example, Catholic universities or hospitals.
My Twitter feed has been alive with conversation about what the Administration has done, but I’ve paid scant attention. I’ll be more attentive from now on because this disturbs me. At one time, I was anti-abortion but pro-choice. No longer. Over the years, I’ve changed my views to anti-abortion, give-the-child-up-for-adoption-if-necessary. To me, if there is any doubt about whether that life begins at conception, then the doubt should favor the possibility of life. Moreover, if Jefferson’s wall separating church and state means anything, it means something here in the domain of all things sacred to religious folk and institutions.
So, on the day of the Florida Primary, the New York Times decided to scare the bejiggers out of the voters with a piece titled, What is it About Mormons?, which followed close on the heels of yesterday’s Washington Post op-ed piece, A Mormon church in need of reform. Can the nation’s other great papers be far behind?
The first question that comes to the mind of this Mormon is whether the rest of the reporting in these two papers is so ill-informed and/or bitter as these pieces are. And then other questions: Why today? Is it a coincidence that the Times piece came out today, the day of the Florida Primary? Why Sally Denton? Yes, she wrote a very bad book about a very bad event–a tragedy–in Mormon history, but it was a very bad, even a lousy, book, so why her? (By the way, if you’re interested in knowing how bad her book is go here and follow the links to the reviews by people who actually do know something about the Mountain Meadows Massacre.) And the really big question, why not have a Times reporter write the story? I’m assuming that the paper of record holds its actual reporters to a higher standard than it does the hacks it let write this piece (Maffly-Kip and Reiss excepted). Or put another way, do these women appreciate playing the role of the puppets in this show?
I’m not going to try and respond to either piece here. I will, however, refer the reader to sites that give a more accurate picture of Mormonism, starting with the Church’s two official sites, then the leading scholarly site and the most prominent apologetics site. All of them give a clearer picture of Mormonism than do either of these two pieces–again the Reiss and Maffly offerings excepted. Finally, here is my own guide to anti-Mormon writing, a response to Martha Nibley Beck’s horrible little tome of a few years ago, a response that deals with many of the same defects you’ll find in the Times and Post pieces.
It took me awhile, but I came around. I admit I bit into the Establishment-is-out-to-get-us apple, but I’ve had my fill. The claim no longer makes sense to me. Besides, many of its messengers come off as what you might call a New Establishment or the Tea Party Establishment, pushing candidates so flawed as to be unelectable. Newt Gingrich, for example. Sarah, Rush, Sean, and the like are all behind him, pushing for all they’re worth. The Establishment is out to get him? Please. I’m a sometimes blogger, more often Facebook poster, who lost his taste for Gingrich histrionics long ago. His full-throated debate attacks on the MSM became the new Race Card in my eyes, a card he played so often and so transparently that I began to mouth Reagan every time he laid the card on the table, “There he goes again.” I’m no Establishment guy, but I’ll do everything in my power to prevent Mr. Gingrich from earning the Republican nomination.
As for Sarah Palin, the little Nash Rambler from up north: Where are your scruples young lady? Since when did the Tea Party decide to support a twice divorced, thrice married womanizer? A candidate with so much obvious baggage and so little discipline? And why, if you dislike Romney so much, are you not pushing Santorum, the one candidate with real Conservative bona fides? (I’m a Romney supporter, by the way.) No, Sarah, yours is a call I won’t respond to.
Byron York has reported on it; now the Wall Street Journal is doing the same. I’m Mormon and a Mitt Romney supporter. I don’t see myself ever supporting Newt Gingrich, a man with more baggage than the lost and found at O’Hare, but Mitt (or Mitt’s superPAC) is wrong on the House Ethics charge and should stop campaigning on it.
That said, I’m willing to give Romney (and/or his superPAC) the benefit of a doubt for going with it initially. As I understand from York’s piece, the waters on this episode in the Speaker’s life were muddied considerably by the partisans who pushed it and by their enablers in the press. However, the truth about the charges should now be obvious to the Romney camp. So they should stop playing the Ethics card–now.
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