Can a Mormon be President or a Catholic be in the White House again?

Presidential Historian, Doris Kearns Godwin discusses the Romney Mormon Issue on Russerted's "Street their Mess"  with the Dean Wormer of Sunday Morning Political & Democratic Max Headrooms and the most pernicious Democratic Apparatchik Tim R, who points out that every description of him begins by stating he is a Mormon.  She discusses JFK's West Virginia I'm am a Catholic and an American who should not be denied the Presidency because of my Religion and to Greater Houston Ministerial Association the Vatican will not run the Oval Office assertion.

 

When I found out Hugh Hewitt was working on a Romney book, I knew that he had Crow Nested this issue long before anyone else when he decided to write it.  Hewitt's latest book's timing on Romney could not be better as it just hits the shelves!  Way to go Eagle Eye Hugh!   This should help his sales and too bad Dean Wormer Russert did not plug it for him. 

 

Mr. Hewitt, please call Dean Wormer Russert and see if you can get on his "Street their Mess" show of spin to help jump start Romney's campaign.  I like Romney a lot but somehow Rudy Giuliani instills more Prize Fighter confidence in me because of the way he handled 911,the exceptional leadership he displayed in addition to the body blows he delivered to the Mafia, a people of his Italian ancestry, during his years as a Federal Prosecutor and an Associate Attorney General during the Reagan Administration:,

• Giuliani was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. It was in this position that he first gained national prominence by prosecuting numerous high-profile cases, resulting in the convictions of Wall Street figures Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken for insider trading. He also spearheaded the effort to jail drug dealers, combat organized crime,  break the web of corruption in government, and prosecute white-collar criminals. He amassed a record of 4,152 convictions with only 25 reversals. Critics disparaged Giuliani, claiming he arranged public arrests of people, then dropped charges for lack of evidence rather than going to trial(from wikipedia)
• It was in 1983 that Giuliani indicted financiers Marc Rich and Pincus Green on charges of tax evasion and making illegal oil deals with Iran during the hostage crisis, in one of the first cases in which the RICO Act was employed in a non-organized crime case.  Rich and Green fled the United States to avoid prosecution; both were eventually pardoned by President Bill Clinton in 2001.

 

 

Giuliani has 'Shoot in his Eyes' and is very impressive indeed in spite of his liberal social stance.  For me, the World War on Jihad(WWJ) preempts the Social Issues because Rudy has stated he will appoint Constructionist Judges in the mold of Scalia, Roberts and Alito, all good Catholics who can shape the Judicial Landscape of America.  To boot Rudy is silver tongued and so very charming and in a self deprecating manner.  RUDY will dismantle monochrome Mrs. Bill Clinton if any Presidential debates between them take place. Imagine the exchange when an authentic "Journalist" poses the Marc Rich question in a debate between these two candidates......hmmm ummm  Goooood!!....%&*#@~`

 

I like both Romney and Giuliani as candidates to take over the GOP but get Hugh Hewitt's new book, "A Mormon in the White House?" here and learn that what JFK expressed in 1960 is still true today for a Mormon and a Catholic.

 

I like Romney's chances and as a Roman Catholic Voter I remember then Senator's JFK's words in his 1960's speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association:

Text of Kennedy's Speech

Reverend Meza, Reverend Reck, I'm grateful for your generous invitation to speak my views..... While the so-called religious issue is necessarily and properly the chief topic here tonight, I want to emphasize from the outset that we have far more critical issues to face in the 1960 election; the spread of Communist influence until it now festers 90 miles off the coast of Florida--the humiliating treatment of our President and Vice-President by those who no longer respect our power--the hungry children I saw in West Virginia, the old people who cannot pay their doctor bills, the families forced to give up their farms--an America with too many slums, with too few schools, and too late to the moon and outer space.   These are the real issues which should decide this campaign. And they are not religious issues --for war and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barriers. But because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected President, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured--perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again--not what kind of church I believe in--for that should be important only to me--but what kind of America I believe in. I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute--where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant ministers would tell their parishioners for whom to vote--where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference--and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him. I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant, nor Jewish--where no public official either requests or accepts instruction on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source--where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly on the general populace or the public acts of its officials--where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all. For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew--or a Quaker--or a Unitarian--or a Baptist. It was Virginia's harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson's Statute of Religious Freedom. Today, I may be the victim--but tomorrow it may be you- -until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great National peril. Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end--where all men and all churches are treated as equal--where every man has the right to attend or not attend the church of his choice--where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind--where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood. This is the kind of America in which I believe. And it represents the kind of Presidency in which I believe--a great office which must neither be humbled by making it the instrument of any one religious group nor tarnished by arbitrarily withholding its occupancy from the members of any one religious group. I believe in a President whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation nor imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office. I would not look with favor upon a President working to subvert the first amendment's guarantees of religious liberty. Nor would our system of checks and balances permit him to do so- -and neither do I look with favor upon those who would work to subvert Article VI of the Constitution by requiring a religious test--even by indirection--for it. If they disagree with that safeguard they should be out openly working to repeal it. I want a Chief Executive whose public acts are responsible to all groups and obligated to none--who can attend any ceremony, service or dinner his office may appropriately require of him- -and who's fulfillment of his Presidential oath is not limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual or obligation. This is the kind of America I believe in--and this is the kind I fought for in the South Pacific, and the kind my brother died for in Europe. No one suggested then that we may have a "divided loyalty", that we "did not believe in liberty", or that we belonged to a disloyal group that threatened "freedom for which our forefathers died." And in fact, this is the kind of America for which our forefathers died--when they fled here to escape religious test oaths that denied office to members of less favored churches--when they fought for the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom-- and when the fought at the shrine I visited today, the Alamo. For side by side with Bowie and Crockett died McCafferty and Bailey and Carey--but no one knows whether they were Catholic or not. For there was no religious test at the Alamo. I ask you tonight to follow in that tradition--to judge on the basis of my record of 14 years in Congress--on my declared stands against an Ambassador to the Vatican, against unconstitutional aid to parochial schools, and against any boycott of the public schools (which I have attended myself)--instead of judging me on the basis of these pamphlets and publications we have all seen that carefully select quotations out of context from the statements of Catholic church leaders, usually in other countries, frequently in other centuries, and always omitting, of course, the statement of American Bishops in 1948 which strongly endorsed our church-state separation, and which more nearly reflects the views of almost every American Catholic. I do not consider these other quotations binding upon my public acts--why should you? But let me say, with respect to other countries, that I am wholly opposed to the state being used by any religious group, Catholic or Protestant, to compel, prohibit, or persecute the free exercise of any other religion. And I hope that you and I condemn with equal fervor those nations which deny their Presidency to Protestants and those which deny it to Catholics. And rather than cite the misdeeds of those who differ, I would cite the record of the Catholic church in such nations as Ireland and France--and the independence of such statesmen as Adenauer and De Gaulle. But let me stress again that these are my views--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. I do not speak for my church on public matters--and the church does not speak for me. Whatever issue may come before me as President--on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject--I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise. But if the time should ever come--and I do not concede any conflict to be even remotely possible--when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office; and I hope any conscientious public servant would do the same. But I do not intend to apologize for the views to my critic of either Catholic or Protestant faith--nor do I intend to disavow either my views or my church in order to win this election. If I should lose on the real issues, I shall return to my seat in the Senate, satisfied that I had tried my best and was fairly judged. But if this election is decided on the basis that 40 million Americans lost their chance of being President on the day they were baptized, then it is the whole nation that will be the loser, in the eyes of Catholics and non-Catholics around the world, and in the eyes of our own people. But if, on the other hand, I should win the election, then I shall devote every effort of mind and spirit to fulfilling the oath of the Presidency--practically identical, I might add, to the oath I have taken for 14 years in the Congress. For without reservation, I can "solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution...So Help Me God."

See Article VI Blog for more on can a "Can a Mormon be President?" For me Mormon Matinee Magnate and MBA Mitt is rising Star and Mr. President is another good name too as it would be for 'Shoot in his Eyes' Rudy Giuliani as well, a Catholic to whom JFK's words also apply.