Quote of the day: Who knew Flip-Flop Mitt was such a man of principle? He simply needs to know which "principles" he's pandering to today

"Americans do not respect believers of convenience. Americans tire of those who would jettison their beliefs, even to gain the world."
--Flip-Flop Mitt "I'll Say Anything to Get What I Want" Romney, in his "JFK speech" yesterday

John Kennedy gave his "JFK speech" during the 1960 presidential campaign in order to reassure Catholic-queasy voters that they were "safe" from his Catholicism, since the U.S. Constitution mandates the separation of church and state. By contrast, Flip-Flop Mitt is currently pandering to Christian extremists dubious about his Mormonism who he believes want to be told that he will dismantle the separation of church and state to subordinate state to church--or, rather, to their particular right-wing junk-Christian views.

JFK was unavailable for comment. Or maybe not--see below.


UPDATE: "ROMNEY VS. KENNEDY"--
DECONSTRUCTING THE "JFK SPEECHES"

A confidant calls attention to Devilstower's devastating "he said, he said" deconstruction on DailyKos of the real and fake "JFK speeches," looking at them side by side. Here's just the start:

Romney vs. Kennedy
Thu Dec 06, 2007 at 03:54:25 PM PST

With the media hauling out the silver trumpets and pounding the drums all week to compare Willard Romney's speech with that of John F. Kennedy, it seems only right to do just that. NPR has transcripts of both Kennedy's 1960 speech made in Houston before a gathering of protestant ministers, and Romney's speech, made before supporters at the George Bush Presidential Library.

That the two speeches should be compared isn't just a matter of two candidates from a minority religion facing questions of faith. Romney sold this speech from the beginning as his opportunity to try on Kennedy's shoes, and he doesn't hesitate to claim Kennedy as his own. However, from the beginning, it's clear that the shoes don't fit.

Romney
Almost 50 years ago another candidate from Massachusetts explained that he was an American running for president, not a Catholic running for president.

Kennedy
For contrary to common newspaper usage, I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for president, who happens also to be a Catholic.

That difference is not a minor one. Kennedy's speech was full of bold, direct confrontation of the issues facing him not as a Catholic, but as Democratic candidate for president. Romney's speech is, beginning to end, a distortion of history. Not only does he attempt to strip the Democrat from JFK, he is ready to accept every lie about the relationship between religion and the history of the United States. His speech plays to the full set of fears Republicans have used to bludgeon the public over the last twenty years, and builds to a frighteningly explicit demand for theocracy.

There's plenty more. If Flip-Flop Mitt is going to be taken seriously--and unfortunately it doesn't look as if he's going away anytime soon--the whole thing is worth looking at.

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