One presidential candidate has a father who was a bigamist(four marriages). Another has a great-grandfather who was a polygamist.
Guess which story is getting more attention?
Do I think either story is relevant to the type of president they would be? Not really, although Obama’s history is closer to affecting him personally and perhaps affecting the types of decisions he would make as president.
But none of this is relevant in the relentless campaign by the media to make Mormons look “weird.”
I agree with Powerline’s take on the media attack:
Why, then, this interest in Romney’s great- and great-great grandfathers? It gives the press an opportunity to take a pot shot at Romney’s religion. He is a Mormon, and Mormons are Weird; the best evidence of this proposition is their former practice of polygamy. (Yet to come are articles on how the Mormons once discriminated against African-Americans. Watch for it: “While Mitt Romney insists that he himself is not a racist, … “)
There is something odd, though, about trying to hang the polygamy albatross around Romney’s neck. One of the obvious differences between Romney and his Republican rivals is that Mitt is the only one who has been married just once. So isn’t the polygamy rap a bit unfair?
I’m old enough to remember when it was commonly believed that a man who had been divorced couldn’t be elected President. (I believe Ronald Reagan was the first.) In today’s world, though, it’s Romney’s life-long monogamy that is a bit Weird, especially given the fact that the Romneys have five children. Polygamy a hundred years ago, monogamy today: that Romney character is a little Weird all the way around.
Romney’s wife made a comment about Mitt having only had one wife, while McCain has had two, and Giuliani has had three.
ah yes that dratted liberal media!
You guys know that the more you talk about it the more time it will get air. I recall something from my days in high school. A bully would pick on the scrawny kid, not because he could, but because he would continually get a reaction, an arousal from the scrawny kid.
Conservatives react so typically and so, well, childishly when the media portrays them in a certain, unattractive light that well, it is so easy to do it again and again and again and again.
As usual with liberals, Dan would rather blame the victim than behave better. Nope – no need to change your behavior, as long as those being attacked dare retaliate.
An odd standard – get out of the debate or else expect unfair, pointless attacks. It’s the victim’s fault, apparently.
What an interesting world we live in. If the media were doing this to Obama, I know Dan would be raging about how unfair it is (since every time there’s a Republican corruption scandal, Dan discuss how corrupt Repubs are, but investigations into shady practices by politicians like Reid are just dirty Rovian tricks in his world view).
Dan, once again, your ability to always and automatically toe the party line fails to amaze me.
I think if Dan stops to think about his #2, he will probably want to retract it. First of all, he’s talking out of two sides of his mouth — there is no liberal media bias, but, yes there is after all because the media wants to provoke such a response because it’s so “easy.”
Secondly, there will be times when the media really will attack people just because they are Mormons, and Dan, who is a Church member, will notice that and realize it’s a real issue.
Thirdly, just as Ivan says, it’s such a predictable partisan response that, upon reflection, it will be impossible to defend when the shoe is on the other foot.
hey guys, I didn’t start the partisan attack. The premise of this post is partisan attack against the media.
That phrase right there tells you exactly it. “media attack.”
Ivan, “behave better?” I’m not bringing up anyone’s ancestry. I’m not supporting this particular article, nor do I condone it. I think journalists can do much better than that. It is the “retaliation” that I’m criticizing.
Dan, while I actually agree to a point, I wonder if you will say the same things when the inevitable “Whitewater” and related comments about Hilary pop up.
in continuation, is this piece on Romney’s ancestry incorrect in any way? Does it present any information that is not factual? Does it use hyperbole to smear Romney? If not, then really, what’s your concern? The truth is the truth.
now, if you want to get into media unfairness, let’s do a red herring, and let’s talk about Obama and the madrassa controversy started by Insight magazine, The Washington Times’ online smear machine, shall we, and let’s talk about how quickly Foxnews jumped on the story, and kept the story going even after it was thoroughly discredited. I note, by the way, that Powerline did not talk about this bit of unfairness at all. Do a search on their blog for Obama and madrassa and you find no results. Here is the link to Insight’s smear of Obama
http://www.insightmag.com/Media/MediaManager/Obama_2.htm
Insight tried a very devious thing here, trying to kill two birds with one stone. They claim that a Clinton operative reveals that Obama attented a madrassa as a child in Indonesia. By claiming it comes from a Clinton operative, it makes the Obama campaign turn on Clinton rather than on Insight, which lied.
Of course, CNN investigated. They sent out one of their reporters to the very school Insight claims is a madrassa, and they quickly discredit the story. It was a false story. Furthermore it was discovered the Insight magazine lied about the Clinton operative too.
Did this dispel Foxnews from running the story? Heck no! They kept running it for a couple of days, and then quietly stopped running it when they realized it no longer had traction, because it was false and easily proven so.
Now, why would Insight create a false story like that? Why would Foxnews distribute it nationally? What’s the difference between this story on Obama and the current story on Romney? Why do conservative bloggers not complain when one of their own lies about a national figure running for president, but are so in shock when a “liberal media” “attacks” Romney with facts about his ancestry?
That’s where the real contradiction lies, Ivan and Geoff, not in my complaints about your “retaliation” for a factually correct piece on Romney’s ancestry! I have no problems with stories about people’s ancestries if they are accurate. Take the current, and very interesting, story about Strom Thurmond and Al Sharpton being related! Ha! Too funny! There is good stuff revealed when one accurately reviews the past, but it is quite another thing when a smear job is done, as was done to Obama by Insight magazine.
Now, does this mean that the “liberal media” is immune from stupid articles on anyone? Hardly. But attack the “liberal media” for the right things, not for giving an accurate description of Romney’s ancestry. Or….are conservative Mormons embarrassed by their past connection to polygamy? is that really the problem here?
There’s one thing there that I don’t think is true:
That’s what the Ancestral File says, but I don’t think it’s correct. (Not everything on Ancestral File is.) I think that wife (Millie Eyring Snow) is a duplicate entry of another wife (Emily Henrietta Eyring), who he married much earlier than 1897. I’m familiar with this family because it’s also part of my family: Miles Park Romney’s sister (Elizabeth Romney Taylor) was my great-great-great-grandmother. This is the conclusion I’ve come to after encountering that listing a few times, from importing Ancestral File data into my PAF file, and trying to clean it up.
The listing of an 1897 marriage in this article seems to be there just for the innuendo factor. It looks like the reporters saw it on Ancestral File and ran with it, assuming that because it came from a Church database it must have happened.
That seems to be a pretty good assumption to make, methinks. Also, that simply lowers the count from five to four wives. Methinks after two, that would be enough to conclude he was polygamous. 🙂
“…..campaign by the media to make Mormons look “weird.””
Huh? We are weird! And weirdness is news, not a campaign against us. From a priesthood ban that never made sense, to sticking with polygamy when the law went against us, to secret temples, to Gs, to a WofW interpretation far from the original intent, to applying a biblical standard of chastity from a time of arranged marriages of children to our era when people marry out of love as adults, etc, we are very weird people from any objective eye.
#8,
Mitt’s daddy, George was born in a Mexican Mormon colony, so I’m sure the open polygamy with their ancestors carried on longer there than in US Mormon colonies. I remember as a kid when George Romney was considered a candiadte for Pres, there was a question if his Mexican birth met the native-born consitutional requirement.
For me, questions of ancestry do matter in a candidate. Not overwhelmingly so, but it’s not for nothing that Barak Obama wrote his Dreams of My Father book, and Harry Reid mentions being from Searchlight with some regularity. I like Mormons; they are my people, and so my first impulse when someone like Mitt Romney comes along is to wish him success. Polygamists are some of our predecessors in the church, and for many such as Brother Romney they are ancestors. I have no wish to distance myself from them.
That’s interesting Steve. Did it? Wasn’t he an American citizen by parentage?
RE #8:
What you posted may be true, but there were indeed sanctioned polygamous marriages after 1890, particularly outside the US. I descend from one.
My g-g-grandfather (and Mitt’s g-grandfather) Helaman Pratt married my g-g-grandmother in 1893. She was his 3rd wife. His 1st wife was her sister and the ancestor of Mitt.
“…relentless campaign by the media to make Mormons look “weird.””
Geoff, I’m not following this logic at all. Have you done a content analysis to demonstrate that all media stories about Mormons are desinged to make Mormons look “weird”?
The word “campaign” sounds like it is a coordinated effort to achieve a goal. I don’t believe it is organized in the least. What I get is an impression that individual journalists are sitting there and going, “Wow, that’s really different.” Since journalism thrives on man-bites-dog stories, of course we’re going to hear a lot of this.
Previous campaigns have seen media discussion of family connections of prior candidates –think of Billy Carter and Roger Clinton. So this does not seem that unusual to me.
What’s weird about Mormon’s with polygamous ancestors? The response to the article has been a giant collective “And???”.
A Black Democratic Presidential candidate with polygamous family on the other hand, now that’s something you don’t hear about everyday.
So why did they choose to report on Romney and not on Obama?
Naismith,
Well said. Furthermore, was the article based on factual information or a smear campaign? If it is factually correct, then in Geoff’s eyes, Mormons are “weird” because he claims an article like this tries to portray Mormons as weird when the article correctly portrays information about Rommey’s ancestors.
Sure it’s factual, but what is the point of reporting it? Where are the stories about what Guiliani and McCains ancestors were doing over 100 years ago? Not that this surprises me, the media is going to jump on the seemingly scandalous past of any of the candidates. The media is a whore, and they’ll report whatever they think will get them the ratings. Divorce isn’t exciting, everyone is doing it. The .00000001% chance that Romney will follow his ancestors and try to make polygamy legal? Now that’s excitement.
This isn’t a Republican thing or a Democratic thing, the media is going to jump at any angle they can report with bold text and exclamations (which is why all cable news is now Anna Nicole/Britnie Spears all the time).
jjohnsen,
But that is not Geoff’s concern. His concern is this: “But none of this is relevant in the relentless campaign by the media to make Mormons look “weird.””
If something is factually presented, how does that make us look weird? Or is Geoff embarrassed by Mormons’ history of polygamy?
So if an investigative reporter trailed the two Clinton’s around, recorded how much time they spent apart, how they interacted with each other, then went through the history of Bill Clinton’s infidelity, etc and wrote an article about it, showing an unconventional relationship that many wouldn’t relate to well, that wouldn’t be a smear campaign? They would just be correctly portraying information about the marital relationship between Hillary and Bill, sure it has little to do with her presidential campaign (kindof like Romney’s ancestors), but it’s accurate so I’m sure that someone that wrote it wouldn’t have any negative motive. Right?
#11 and 14:
I’m aware that it took the 1904 “Second Manifesto” to put the brakes on polygamous marriages in Mexico – even if they were illegal there too. (Miles Park Romney’s daughter Emma married her sister Caroline’s husband, Edward Eyring, in November 1903 in Colonia Juarez.)
Checking familysearch.org, the only place it gives for an 1897 marriage for Miles Park Romney and Millie Eyring Snow is St. George. But it does give an 1887 date in Colonia Dublan for Miles Park Romney and Emily Henrietta Eyring. The latter comes from the IGI, which is taken more directly from Church and temple records. I hold to my conclusion that whoever wrote this article saw the 1897 date and ran with it.
Most Mormons I know are embarrassed about polygamy and blacks not having the priesthood. Those are two weird things that I wouldn’t fault Geoff for being embarrassed about as well. As for a campaign to make us look weird, that sounds a little too much like the ‘vast right-wing conspiracy’. I don’t think mainstream media is going out of it’s way to wage war against our normalcy, they’re reporting stuff about us that frankly is pretty weird to outsiders. There are a couple of different forums that I get asked questions about my religion all the time, usually followed by gasps and wonderment at how different it is after I answer. We are strange people with strange customs. Not being allowed to drink coffee or Pepsi is as weird to some people as polygamy or not having sex before marriage.
We usually embrace our weirdness, why are reports of our weirdness now considered an attack? If the NYT had an article about how strange it was that Mitt Romney didn’t drink coffee in the morning would any of us be offended?
I think of this article in more or less the same light that I think of the “Stom Thurmond’s third cousin four times removed owned Al Sharpton’s great-great-grandmother” article: it meets the “ooh, scandal!” keyword criteria necessary for most successful modern journalistic pieces, it’s about famous names (which garner attention even if the keywords don’t,) and it has no real bearing on much of anything. I suspect, though I can’t be certain, that such stories come out and are repeated more often about conservative/Republican individuals, because of the individual biases of reporters and editors, rather than due to any “campaign” or “conspiracy.”
As far as pointing out our strangeness being perceived as an attack: we’re proud of our current non-use of coffee. We’re not (in any organizational sense) proud of our non-current polygamous practices, blood atonement, etc.
The third component of distress-over-Mormons-are-Weird-memes is the “yes, it’s true, but that’s an awfully rude way of speaking/we don’t talk about such sacred things in public/good grief you managed to utterly miss the point, man” factor, which tends to frustrate people in scenarios such as posting pictures of temple garments, referring to doctrines of a Mother in Heaven as “Mormons think there’s a Mrs. God!” (I was listening to BYU TV this afternoon ^_^) and yes, “them there Mormons have as many wives as they can stand to have harping at them!” cracks.
(there’s a separate aspect, in that articles about Catholic candidates rarely mention prayers for intercession/patron saints of basket weavers/transubstantiation, and articles about Jewish politicians rarely mention prayer shawls or sleeping in tents for a week every year or even not being able to eat cheeseburgers and having to have two sets of dishes in the kitchen. On the other hand, Catholics can’t escape infallible-Pope talk and Jews are stuck with half the world calling them horned child-eaters, so maybe we could do more to chill out on the ‘unfairness of life’ thing.)
Clark,
Sorry I didn’t respond sooner.
I’m guessing that since G. Romney’s candidacy wasn’t successful and he wasn’t nominated nor elected pres, whether he met the natural born citizen requirement was legally moot. I’m guessing he would have had to be elected for anyone to force a legal challenge. I believe George Romney’s public position was that since Mexico is part of the Americas, he met the natural born test, particularly because the original intent of that test was likely to preclude a European Royal from the presidency of a fledgling US republic.
Wikipedia addresses the issue in G. Romney’s bio: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Romney
Interesting that JS proposed Mexico and Canada jioning the US and I think Mexico’s joining the US as at least a territory today makes a lot of sense.
For the record, I’m not really all that embarrassed by polygamy in Church history.
I believe George Romney’s public position was that since Mexico is part of the Americas, he met the natural born test
The constitutional test is “natural born Citizen. In other words, no naturalized citizens. Because both George Romney’s parents were citizens, he did not need to be naturalized and thus qualified as “natural born.” This was brought up during his short campaign merely as a curiosity–never as a serious issue.
Alas, much to the relief of Lou Dobbs, the millions of Mexicans whose parents were not U.S. citizens are not eligible for the presidency.
Yeah, what would Dobbs do if Mexico joined the USA as a territory to erase the border while keeping some autonomy?
Seth, I’m not embarrassed by polygamy or polyandry either. The embarrassing part is abandoning the principal rather than just following local laws on the subject. It makes earlier Mormon leaders come off as out of control horn dogs. It also pretends there was no reproductive rationale to the practice in a time when reproduction (children living to adulthood) was much more difficult than it is today. A rationale that could be summed up as “let no womb goes to waste”, even when a 1st husband is away, infertile, impotent, etc. What’s embarrassing today is our leaders pretending polygamy/polyandry never existed in the church and making ridiculous statements the LDS are the only Mormons not to be confused with those horrible polygamists.
Sarah,
#23,
Well, the article you cite (the Strom Thurmond-Al Sharpton connection) has both liberal and conservative, so you might need other examples…
Except when they are taking Church History at BYU:) Then they brag about their ancestors.
I really felt out of it in that class. As a convert, I could never raise my hand and say, “that was my great-great-whatever.”
This one is going around in email.
Re: Obama, Clinton, and Romney running for president.
Would you vote for a black person for president?
Would you vote for a woman for president?
Would you vote for a Mormon for president?
If you answered “yes” to all the above questions, then come November 2008…
WRITE IN GLADYS KNIGHT!