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Mitt, you’re no Jack Kennedy

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Dec 06, 2007

Today, Republican presidential aspirant Mitt Romney delivered a deep yet shifty speech about faith in politics.

I say “deep” because he tackled mammoth philosophical issues, chief among them: Should church and state be separate in American society? Romney’s answer: Yes. Religious leaders, including those of his Mormon church, would not influence public policy under his administration.

But, Romney hastened to add, that doesn’t mean politicians should be separated from God. Nor should faith should be ejected as a topic of discussion from the public square. And make no mistake — classrooms are part of the public square.

I agree with Romney’s position, and I’ll soon post a column to explain why. Feel free to clobber me with your doubts, suspicions and insults in the meantime.

More immediately, let me explain why Romney’s speech was ultimately shifty. It literally attempted to shift attention away from his specific Mormon beliefs to grander and more abstract intellectual questions like the meaning of secularism. With no Q & A after the speech, he could hastily leave the stage and avoid addressing media inquiries about Mormonism.

Put bluntly, Romney ran scared. The result? He did a big disservice to his faith by squandering the opportunity to de-mystify it.

Now contrast Romney’s approach to that of the equally blow-dried but far more courageous John F. Kennedy. In 1960, Kennedy faced a pack of journalists — mostly Protestant men from the US South — to address their conspiracy theories about Catholicism.

These guys didn’t just pepper Kennedy with questions. Hell no. They pelted him. Over and over Kennedy explained what kind of a Catholic he is while assuring that priests, bishops, cardinals and the Pope would have no voice as policy-makers in his White House.

In his closing statement to the media pack, Kennedy said that he didn’t consider their questions to be bigoted. Rather, he said, the only unreasonable reaction comes from those who believe that America should reject him merely because he’s a member of the Catholic church, regardless of his stated commitment to keep Rome out of Washington.

Kennedy’s message: Interrogate me, but make it worth your while by taking my replies seriously.

Today, we the people would denounce such media questions as intolerant. But without inviting biased journalists to express their prejudices, Kennedy would have left too many Americans wondering what his convictions are — and why. Which is exactly what Mitt Romney has just done.

Some would argue that’s a tactical necessity to re-frame Romney as a Mormon vying for president to an American vying for president. Yet Kennedy cast off the label of “Catholic candidate” by squarely confronting myths about Catholics.

And don’t tell me the media are more rabid today. Of course they are. But watch the Kennedy footage, then tell me that journalists would pummel Romney any harder. Even if they did, so what? You’d think that Romney would relish the chance to let reporters sound hostile, narrow-minded and stridently secular. That’s red meat for the Republican base.

Fact is, Romney wimped out. To paraphrase from a previous presidential campaign, “Mitt, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”