He Can’t Win For Losing

Mr. Romney’s tendency to gloss over Mormonism’s history and distinctive tenets has upset some fellow Mormons. Some said they cringed when Mr. Romney said on “60 Minutes,” “I can’t imagine anything more awful than polygamy.”

Tom Grover, 26, a Mormon who is the host of a weekday talk show on politics on radio station KVNU here, said that while he thinks Mr. Romney has handled the scrutiny admirably, some of his callers were incensed about Mr. Romney’s repudiation of his own ancestors’ polygamy. The church outlawed the practice a century ago, but members are taught to understand that polygamy had a theological and historical context in the church, which Mr. Romney’s remark ignored.

“That really left a bad taste in people’s mouths,” Mr. Grover said. “That’s a tough thing for people to hear when their ancestors sacrificed a lot to live that life. They probably wouldn’t bring polygamy back, but they honor the place of it in church history.” ~The New York Times

Even when he’s disrespecting his own religious tradition, Romney can’t really be honest.  He can’t imagine “anything more awful than polygamy”?  Really?  Genocide, slavery, war, abortion, cannibalism, murder–these are runners-up in Romney’s mind?  Leave aside whether or not he offends Mormons by saying this–it either demonstrates a strange view of what the worst thing in the world is or it is another example of Romney’s willingness to say whatever he thinks he needs to say to get out of a tough question.  More importantly, anyone who would so readily dismiss and condemn his own church’s history for the sake of political expediency is a man who cannot be trusted with any position of responsibility.