Romney Speech: Where's Leonard Pinth Garnell When You Really Need Him?

Yeah, we hit this last Friday with a Top Ten Clove offering, but it just isn't sitting right.

Instead of laying it all out there about the Mormons, we got a dumpster-full of boiler-plate bullshit, the kind of campaign speech typically reserved for one of those Main Street, USA, 7AM Politics-and-Pancakes event.

If you listened to, primarily, the mainstream media punditry, and/or the Rightwing Freakshow, you may be lead to believe that Willard Mitt Romney, Republican panderer for President, gave a speech that ended war, famine, found a cure for cancer and otherwise, came off like an old Coca Cola commercial ("I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony ...").

Where was the droll Leonard Pinth Garnell when you really needed him, for this was, surely, an episode of "Bad Political Theatre" if there ever was one.

Pinth could have warned us, ever so slyly, indicating we were about to see a "a monumentally ill-advised, exquisitely awful, unrelentingly bad, pandering orgy of the highest order, drenched in self-importance, inflated with an astounding eye towards nothingness and dripping, so sweetly, with intolerance, it will make a bigots spine tingle ..."

Hosannas are being hoisted and the word "Presidential", and that "he looked Presidential", is being flung around like it was a Frisbee convention.

Listen to this dreck from 'The Boston Globe';

"Mitt Romney's highly anticipated religion speech yesterday was a political tour de force, rejecting the notion that he'd be bound as president by the leaders of his Mormon Church but also placing his faith among the many religions that constitute the "moral heritage" of the United States."

"Tour de Force? Moral Heritage?"

Peggy Noonan, that aging #1 Reagan Groupie, every so aching for a New Gipper, blew this wet kiss to Make-up Mitt;

"Mr. Romney gave the speech Thursday morning. How did he do?

Very, very well. He made himself some history. The words he said will likely have a real and positive impact on his fortunes. The speech's main and immediate achievement is that foes of his faith will now have to defend their thinking, in public. But what can they say to counter his high-minded arguments? "Mormons have cooties"?

It was a 40-minute-plus game of dodge ball, not even in the same ballpark of talking anything remotely close about Mormonism. No Joseph Smith banners on that stage. In fact, Make-Up Mitt only uttered the word "Mormon" once.

"Made himself some history?"

It was a Mad Lib, fill-in-the-blank stump speech, of the most generic terms, on Religion and Beliefs, not the bombshell, clear-the-decks, cover-your-childs' eyes, discourse on Mormonism.

He, and his campaign staff (the one's left not pretending to be a cop), knew that couldn't get the wall-to-wall, live, cable news coverage if Make-Up Mitt was going to prattle on about a cult (though, it could have been of interest to MSNBC, for the Doc-Bloc specials)

Lawrence O'Donnell, taking some heat for his comments yesterday on the McLaughlin Group was on-target with;

"This was the worst political speech of my lifetime. Because this man stood there and said to you "this is the faith of my fathers." And you, and none of these commentators who liked this speech realized that the faith of his fathers is a racist faith. As of 1978 it was an officially racist faith, and for political convenience in 1978 it switched. And it said "OK, black people can be in this church." He believes, if he believes the faith of his fathers, that black people are black because in heaven they turned away from God, in this demented, Scientology-like notion of what was going on in heaven before the creation of the earth."

Here's a few gems from Make-Up 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.

"I believe that every faith I have encountered draws its adherents closer to God. And in every faith I have come to know, there are features I wish were in my own: I love the profound ceremony of the Catholic Mass, the approachability of God in the prayers of the Evangelicals, the tenderness of spirit among the Pentecostals, the confident independence of the Lutherans, the ancient traditions of the Jews, unchanged through the ages, and the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims. As I travel across the country and see our towns and cities, I am always moved by the many houses of worship with their steeples, all pointing to heaven, reminding us of the source of life's blessings.

WOW!

Move over, Elmer Gantry, there's a new healer in town!

And that is was calculated to "end the discussion", as to his Mormonism, is extremely lame, or, as Leonard Pinth Garnell might say, "Astonishingly ill-chosen!"

That he can get away with an extended photo-op and now he's untouchable?

If, and it's big, huge, monumental "if", Romney does get elected (Hey, we do have 2000 as precedent, and, anyway, you'll likely see Elvis, with monkeys flying out of his ass, before that happens), you better get your God on ... And it better be the "right" God, or your toast.

"We separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason. No religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion. But in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism. They are wrong.

More On Make-Up Mitt's Holier-Than-Thou Stump Speech

Pam's House Blend: Mitt's pious bullsh*t

The Carpetbagger Report: Did Romney’s speech work?

Lee Harris: How and Why Romney Bombed

Maureen Dowd: Mitt’s No J.F.K.

Matthew Yglesias: Romney's Terrible Speech