Romney’s Unsurprisingly Terrible Speech

Mitt Romney’s “Mormon” speech must have been awful; Chris Matthews loved it. Clearly, I’m not the target audience for this sort of thing so it’s perhaps unsurprising that I found it entirely unpersuasive and, in places, quite appalling. Some immediate thoughts…

It was nice of Governor Romney to concede that jihadist terrorists are “worse” than Europeans who don’t share the American brand of religion, but really it’s insulting for him to even make the comparison. I didn’t know we were also the enemy. Even if the terrorists are “infinitely worse” it’s significant that the two be bracketed together as examples of the twin perils facing America.

Others are better placed to comment upon the theological aspects of this speech, but Romney’s apparent belief that all religions are just the same here does endorse an odd element of the modern day American religious experience: doctrine is immaterial, all that matters is that you believe in God.