Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Mitt-for-brains
Mitt Romney, when asked if he would consider appointing a Muslim to his cabinet if elected president, answered: "based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration."
WTF? Hasn't Romney ever heard of Article 6 of the United States Constitution: "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." And since when are cabinet positions, or other high public offices, to be divvied up in a religious spoils system? (Sadly, Romney is by no means alone in his "to the victor go the spoils" mentality, as witness George Bush Junior and his cronyism towards Southern Baptists.)
A huge amount of ink has been spilled in the press over whether or not Mitt Romney's bizarre religious beliefs should be open to scrutiny and a factor in assessing his fitness for the presidency. I say, why the hell not? But why stop at Romney? At least three of the rethug candidates proudly deny the overwhelmingly well established theory of evolution. Do they believe in the Rapture and Armageddon? Do they think they have a duty to keep the End Times happening on schedule?
As far as I am concerned, any kind of religious belief is a negative in a presidential candidate, if it's strong enough to distort the person's perspective and judgment. It means he or she will be making decisions based on irrational dogma instead of reason and the best available knowledge. Alas, given that atheists are the most hated minority in the US, it'll be a long time before we recognize that a rational world view is the best qualification for the most powerful office in the world.
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RSS feed for commentsNate wrote 11/27 12:51pm in reply to Original article: Odd thta Ijaz dontated to the democratic party before making up this story. Here is the response from Romney: "No, that’s not what I said. His question was, Did I need to have a Muslim in my Cabinet in order to confront radical jihad, or would it be important to have a Muslim in my Cabinet?’ And I said no, I don’t think you need a Muslim in the Cabinet to take on radical jihad any more than we needed a Japanese American to understand the threat that was coming from Japan or something of that nature.” - Romney (Reply) |
