February 24, 2007

... And Brigham Young's Great-Great-Great-Grandson Won A Super Bowl

Are the media really this desperate to find some dirt on Mitt Romney? I guess they must be:

While Mitt Romney condemns polygamy and its prior practice by his Mormon church, the Republican presidential candidate's great-grandfather had five wives and at least one of his great-great grandfathers had 12.

Polygamy was not just a historical footnote, but a prominent element in the family tree of the former Massachusetts governor now seeking to become the first Mormon president.

Romney's great-grandfather, Miles Park Romney, married his fifth wife in 1897. That was more than six years after Mormon leaders banned polygamy and more than three decades after a federal law barred the practice.

Uh, okay. So? What exactly does that have to do with Mitt Romney and the race for the presidency? According to the Nosey Parkers at Cal State Fullerton -- my alma mater, natch -- it shows that it was an essential part of the Romney family experience:

B. Carmon Hardy, a polygamy expert and retired history professor at California State University-Fullerton, said polygamy was "a very important part of Miles Park Romney's family."

Hardy added: "Now, very gradually, as you moved farther away from it, it became less a part of it. But during the time of Miles Park Romney, it was an essential principle of the Romney family life."

Oh, sweet Lord. Yeah, if you move farther away from it, it becomes less important, as in not at all. The last polygamist in Romney's ancestors was three generations earlier. My paternal great-grandfather was a drunkard; does that disqualify me from driving, too?

I guess we have the layers of editors and checks at the Asinine Press to thank for this story, as well as chief political busybodies Jennifer Dobner and Glen Johnson. Unless Mitt's running on the "legalize polygamy" platform, what in the hell does this have to do with anything?

UPDATE: I decided to wander over to Memeorandum to see who else might be writing about this low blow from the AP, and found good posts by Outside the Beltway and Iowa Voice. (Actually, Brian at Iowa Voice did the same thing.) And Kevin Hayden has, er, succinct advice to the media from the left.

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Listed below are links to weblogs that reference ... And Brigham Young's Great-Great-Great-Grandson Won A Super Bowl:

» AP Smears Romney With 155-Year-Old Family History from Outside The Beltway | OTB
YahooNews runs under the headline “Romney family tree has polygamy branch” an AP piece from Jennifer Dobner and Glen Johnson breaking the shocking news that Mitt Romney’s “great-grandfather had five wives and at least one of his... [Read More]

» So Now It’s Ok To Use The Family Tree To Smear A Candidate? from Iowa Voice
Boy, talk about digging for dirt: While Mitt Romney condemns polygamy and its prior practice by his Mormon church, the Republican presidential candidate’s great-grandfather had five wives and at… ... [Read More]

» AP Writes Meaningless Romney Polygamy Story from The American Mind
The Associated Press with their inability to write factually on Iraqi violence felt the need to point out that Mitt Romney’s family has a polygamist past. That’s not surprising since he does come from a line of Mormons: While Mitt Romney co... [Read More]

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» The AP exposes the dangerous polygamy gene from Polimom Says
In Salt Lake City, Utah, Mormons have amassed the world’s largest genealogical records repository. Their Family History Library consists of 142,000 square feet, containing roughly 2 1/2 million rolls of microfilm, and many hundreds of thousands o... [Read More]

» And we should care ... why? from Public Secrets: from the files of the Irishspy
Breaking news! Mitt Romney's Mormon ancestors were ...*gulp!*... polygamists!! (.wav) What? You say you don't care? Well, you should! After all, the Associated Press thinks it's so important that they devote a 1,200-word article to it. While Mitt Romne... [Read More]