You get the sense that Frank Rich is a little disgusted with the presidential campaign already: In today's column, after declaring his longing for a Howard Beale-type to "get mad as hell and not take it anymore," he singles out Lawrence O'Donnell for his "McLaughlin Group" rant but really, Rich is taking that mantle upon himself.
As it happens, there's a lot that makes him mad as hell. His first target is Mitt Romney, whose speech last week about "Faith in America" tried to spin his Mormon faith in a manner palatable for right wing Christians and triggered O'Donnell's outburst.* Unlike many of his media peers, Rich doesn't buy the speech as a statesman-like moment, instead pointing out that O'Donnell was correct in noting that Mormonism was discriminatory until 1978, and giving his own reason why Romney never spoke out against that:
The answer is simple. Mr. Romney didn't fight his church's institutionalized apartheid, whatever his private misgivings, because that's his character. Though he is trying to sell himself as a leader, he is actually a follower and a panderer, as confirmed by his flip-flops on nearly every issue.
Whoa! No punches pulled there. Rich makes this claim — backing O'Donnell up and reviving the Romney flip-flop claim — just in time for Romney's appearance on "Meet The Press" this morning (and, presumably, in time for Tim Russert and/or his producers to incorporate it into the grilling). This MTP is important for Romney, to consolidate his message, continue pushing his faith meme and — most importantly — to do what he can to blunt the Huckabee surge. (Anyone else notice the word "surge" being inordinately applied in describing Mike Huckabee's sudden whoosh in the polls? Somewhere, Frank Luntz is smiling.)
Speaking of Huckabee, Rich skewers him too, singling him out as an example of the "collective nastiness of the Republican field" (and that's quite an honor):
Just when you think the tone can't get any uglier, it does. Last week Mike Huckabee, who only recently stood out for his kind words about illegal immigrants, accepted an endorsement from a founder of the Minutemen, whose approach to stopping the "illegal alien invasion" has been embraced by white supremacists and who have been condemned as "vigilantes" by President Bush.
(NB: Rich doesn't mention Huckabee's AIDS commentary, NIE ignorance, Baptist position on women, penchant for accepting all manner of gifts, or — the piece de resistance — his history on crime which includes pushing for parole for a convicted rapist, ignoring the pleas of multiple victims not to lest he rape again...which he did, as well as murder, at least once but probably twice).**
Rich takes the faith theme over to the Dems, invoking last weekend's Obama-Oprah tour, and noting something interesting about it: For all its revival-meeting preachy undertones (which we noted, too), it was decidedly non-denominational. Per Rich:
This movement has its own religious tone. References to faith abound in Mr. Obama's writings and speeches, as they do in Oprah's language on her TV show and at his rallies. Five years ago, Christianity Today, the evangelical journal founded by Billy Graham, approvingly described Oprah as "an icon of church-free spirituality" whose convictions "cannot simply be dismissed as superficial civil religion or so much New Age psychobabble."
"Church free" is the key. This country has had its fill of often hypocritical family-values politicians dictating what is and is not acceptable religious and moral practice. Instead of handing down tablets of what constitutes faith in America, Romney-style, the Oprah-Obama movement practices an American form of ecumenicalism. It preaches a bit of heaven on earth in the form of a unified, live-and-let-live democracy that is greater than the sum of its countless disparate denominations.
This, incidentally, is a position a lot closer to that taken by John F. Kennedy , who used his speech to emphasize the separation of Church and State, and the separation of his faith from how he would govern the whole country. Romney, on the other hand, took the opportunity to cast himself as the uber-Christian candidate. What a lovely message to deliver to the nation smack-dab in the middle of Chanukah!
Finally, Rich takes a smaller dig at Hillary Clinton, using her as a foil for the (rather saintishly-portrayed) Oprah-Obama train. Though Rich notes that the OprObama message is indistinct from that preached by all the Dems, he wonders if "Mrs. Clinton's shrill campaign continues to cast her as Nixon to Mr. Obama's Kennedy." That's a big ouch, considering that Clinton has bested Obama in most of the debates (unlike the Kennedy-Nixon showdown). I'm never a fan of the word "shrill" as applied to Hillary — its a word that is both specifically feminine and specifically negative, and in my mind part of the subtle but perceptible misogyny lurking on the edges of the coverage (cough, cackle, cough), but aside from that Rich does make the point that the negative swipes taken by Clintonites on Obama's youthful drug use didn't make her look good. (Though to be honest, I think the specific mention of the drug use in question — cocaine — is not as out-of-bounds as everyone seems to think, since it was Obama himself who freely copped to it, in writing, and ages ago. If it's not a big deal then it's not a big deal.) Nevertheless, in a week where Obama was synonymous with rallying for change and hope and a fresh message on the wings of Oprah, it was a bad move on the part of the Clinton campaign, and did make them look desperate and sneaky.
Who knows what these forceful columns from Rich will actually accomplish in the real world — this week Clinton got the endorsement from the Des Moines Register which, though it praised Obama for all the right reasons, still shot him with the silver bullet of experience (and specifically, the lack thereof). On MTP, meanwhile, Russert did point out — as Rich did — that Romney was in his 30s when the Mormons rolled back prohibitions on black worshippers in 1978. But, if Iowa really is anyone's game at this point, one can hardly blame Rich-as-Beale for standing up for his candidate of choice: "After hearing someone like Mitt Romney preach his narrow, exclusionist idea of "Faith in America," some Americans may simply see a vote for Mr. Obama as a vote for faith in America itself." Having faith in Iowans is one thing, but as the past week has shown, every little bit counts.
*It should be noted that, as Elinor Clift pointed out on the McLaughlin show in question, many religions have darker sides including discriminatory practices and doctrines, and it is sligthly unfair to hold Romney accountable for the traditions of the whole — though not for his own silence on the matter.
**The perpetrator, Wayne Dumond, died in prison before being charged with a second rape and murder, but it is accepted that he was the perpetrator. Details here.
***Super-interesting point made by Rich here about race, noting that if it truly is a factor weighing against Obama then "he can't win in Iowa, where the population is roughly 95 percent white, or in New Hampshire, which is 96 percent white." Whatever happens in the primaries, Obama's standing in the polls is some terrifically heartening evidence that Americans may be color-blind, after all.
Photos: Rich via nytimes.com; Huckabee via the AP; Romney from Fox News via ETP.