And we should care ... why?
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 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.
Romney's great-grandmother, Hannah Hood Hill, was the daughter of polygamists. She wrote vividly in her autobiography about how she "used to walk the floor and shed tears of sorrow" over her own husband's multiple marriages.
I like the way this article starts: "While Mitt Romney...." In other words, watch out, folks: he may not be a polygamist (in fact, he's been married only once and has five children), but we can't be too sure about his commitment to monogamy. It's in his family tree, and who knows how he's been influenced?
Maybe an editor at the AP was just bored and decided to look at the family tree of a major candidate. Maybe. But I doubt it. This looks to me more like a hit-piece designed to make an issue of the candidate's religion. Toward the end of the article, we read:
The Romney campaign had no comment for this story.
The usual reason to get a comment from the subject of an investigative piece is to give them a chance to tell "their side" of the controversial story, because the rest of the article makes them look bad. Again, it looks like the only purpose of the article was to tar and feather Romney with the crimes of his ancestors and the "weirdness" of his religion. I can imagine the press officer at Romney HQ rolling his eyes after hanging up on that phone call.
I thought this crap went out of fashion after the debate over Kennedy and his Catholicism?
LINKS: John Hinderaker at Power Line wonders why the AP would care about a candidate's family tree. After all, no one in the MSM mentions Giuliani's father, who was a petty crook. Why should the activities of Romney's ancestors 100 years ago matter today? Meanwhile, James Joyner at Outside the Beltway calls it a smear job. Ed Morrissey is embarrassed that his alma mater was a party to this, and Iowa Voice asks if it's OK now to dig through all the candidates' family trees. Blue Crab Boulevard calls it "guilt by Associated Press," and compares it to the attempted Nazi smear of Governor Schwarzenegger. Dean Barnett thinks it's a deliberate targeting of a conservative Republican. Hot Air, of course, vents.
SELF-SERVING MOMENT: This article is linked through the excellent Real Clear Politics web site's Reader Articles page. If you think the above is worth recommending to others, please consider voting for it there. Registration is free and easy, and they don't spam. Thanks. 
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