RUSH: Boy, they are out for Mitt Romney! I saw this over the weekend: “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 Mitt Romney.” This is an AP story by Jennifer Dobner and Glen Johnson. “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. Romney’s great-great grandfather, Parley Pratt, an apostle in the church, had 12 wives.
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RUSH: Let me explain the difference in this Mitt Romney business and the way Democrats are treated in this regard. Ted Kennedy’s father — we’re not talking about a great-grandfather or great-great grandfather; we’re talking about father. Ted Kennedy’s father was a Third Reich sympathizer. Franklin Delano Roosevelt had to pull him as ambassador of the Court of Saint James. (For those of you in Rio Linda, that’s Great Britain.) He had to pull him out of there because he was a sympathizer to the Third Reich. Now, we don’t hold this against Teddy. Teddy had nothing to do with that. Just as we don’t hold Mitt Romney’s grandfather, or great-grandfather, against him. But the lib media, the Drive-Bys, are definitely trying to do that. You take a look at who the media really goes after and you’ve gotta wonder whether there’s fear there, fear driving it. Well, they just want to destroy every conservative they can. It’s just part and parcel of the agenda that exists.
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RUSH: Here’s Becky in Salt Lake City. Becky, how many husbands do you have?
CALLER: I’m so great, and I just tell you, there’s no one like you in the whole world, and never will be. When you’re gone it’s never going to be the same.
RUSH: I know. It’s true.
CALLER: (laughing) No, you’re one in a zillion zillion. Anyway, I love your show. I’ve listened to you for 15 years. This business of polygamy…
RUSH: Becky, before we go on, how many husbands do you have or have had?
CALLER: I’ve had one.
RUSH: One?
CALLER: (laughing) But I come from a family, solid, Mormon pioneer stock. All my ancestors came to this valley in the early or mid-1800s and every one of them were polygamists. I probably have… Well, so many great-grandfathers, you know so…
RUSH: You know, some of our ancestors scalped the Indians. By the way, the Indians are a great example of what happens if you don’t control the borders.
CALLER: Well, that’s true. (laughing) Anyway, I want —
RUSH: Everybody has ancestors that did things.
CALLER: Well, of course they do.
RUSH: Ancestors that were rapists, ancestors that had affairs.
RUSH: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. It’s not something universally opposed by everyone in the world.
CALLER: I agree, there are some societies, but less face it, most of the people who vote are going to say, “No way.”
RUSH: Well, who? Where do you find people that have more than one wife?
CALLER: In a few places.
RUSH: Where? Name ’em.
CALLER: Well, I know in Africa.
RUSH: Africa. (whispering) Parts of the Middle East. Shh! Shh! Shh! Shhhhhhhh!
CALLER: Yes, I do know that. I was going to come up with that one next.
RUSH: We don’t want to call attention to that. (grumbling)
CALLER: No, we don’t. But that’s why polygamy is a no, no, in America. No, no, no — and it’s always going to be a no-no, and he won’t win. He’s a good man. I think there are other men as great as he is, but I don’t think he could win. He could never win. He won’t win, and I’m a Mormon, and a —
RUSH: Now, wait a second.
CALLER: — conservative —
RUSH: Why are you so certain that Mitt Romney can’t win?
CALLER: Because, because polygamy will be the banner in front of him forever.
RUSH: You really think that’s going to stick?
CALLER: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I do. And the polygamy, this Warren Jeffs business, they’re just waiting, the media is just waiting to break that all open, the closer it comes. If Mitt starts to show he’s really going to be a front-runner, you wait and see. You wait and see! I predict it’s just going to be mayhem.
RUSH: I think it’s already started.
CALLER: It always will be. It always will be. It’s like a person who’s fat. It doesn’t matter what else you’ve done, how marvelous, how wonderful you are. The first thing somebody will say if they want to, you know, make you look horrible, is say, “Well, that person’s fat.” That’s the first thing they’re going to say; it doesn’t matter anything else. It’s kind of like that. Polygamy is just there, and Mormons are looked at as a kind of cult. That’s the number two thing. We’re looked at as a cult. You know, we have angels. We have the Book of Mormon. We had Joseph Smith. He was told his name would be known for good and evil throughout the earth all the days…
RUSH: I’m not denying that it presents a challenge because he’s the first.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: But JFK was the first Catholic and look how he overcame it with mistresses. Well, including mistresses. He didn’t overcome with mistresses.
CALLER: He wasn’t from a polygamist family.
RUSH: No, no, but his father was a Nazi sympathizer and for crying out loud!
CALLER: I know. I know, but that that doesn’t matter. That doesn’t matter. Polygamy does something to people. Maybe it’s in the genes.
RUSH: Look, I understand what you’re saying. I think it can be overcome. It depends on Mitt. It depends on if he chooses to deal with it and how. I think the American people can be fickle, and certain people can read this story and think that Mitt’s got numbers of wives, too, because his grandfather did and his great-great grandfather did. But it’s too early to write anybody off here. I don’t know if you support him?
CALLER: I’ve seen history. I’ve seen people’s reactions to me all my life, having come from polygamy. I see how people react. I just think it’s something… Yeah, I think Mitt’s great. He’d have to do something really amazing for the whole rank-and-file to actually back somebody who came from polygamy. It’s such an ugly word.
RUSH: Becky, let me tell you something.
CALLER: Yes?
RUSH: I want to share a little experience I had with you when I used to work for the baseball team, the Kansas City Royals.
CALLER: Mmm-hmm?
RUSH: My first job there was director of group sales.
CALLER: Mmm-hmm.
RUSH: We had several large groups that attended baseball games every year. It was my job to sell them and convince them, and they coordinate the ticket sales with their group and their appearance that night at the ball game and pregame festivities. There was a Mormon night. It wasn’t called that, it was Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
CALLER: Mmm-hmm. Right.
RUSH: It was in Kansas City, and I met with the group that put this thing together every year, and I have to tell you, I was impressed with them. The fellowship between these people on that committee, the love they had for each other, it was heartwarming to be part of it. I think there’s obviously something because this is new and this is the first time there are a lot of people going to try to make a whole big deal out of this, as this hit piece story indicates, but there have to be ice breakers, and people like first times. That’s what people liked about the last Super Bowl. There were a lot of firsts in this Super Bowl that aren’t going to happen again. It’s impossible to have the first two black coaches in the Super Bowl ever again.
You may have two black coaches who are publicly, witnessing, confessing Christians, but it won’t be the first anymore when this happens — and people like firsts. This can be overcome in any number of ways, particularly if the hit pieces keep coming and if they appear to be just grossly unfair and targeting somebody who doesn’t seem to fit that profile and doesn’t deserve it, but a lot of it will be up to Mitt Romney himself and how he deals with it. Look, I’m glad you called, Becky. A quick time-out. We gotta take a break here, an EIB obscene profit center. We all have heard about polygamy. The thing I always wondered about it was how in the world could these guys afford it? How do you afford 12 wives? How do you afford it? My gosh, that’s… I know we’re not just talking money. There’s a whole other question. How do you afford it?
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RUSH: Yeah, I know, polygamy. How would you like to go home every night and have to have five discussions about your relationships. Every night, folks! I’ve never understood it, but nevertheless, I want to tell you what I think this is really all about. (laughing) Even Dawn’s chuckling because she knows. I think all of this is a hit piece on Romney and so forth. Look, polygamy is still alive and well in parts of the Islamic world, the Middle East. You can’t criticize that! Of course there’s not one of them running for president (ahem) yet, and that’s what sets this apart. Why is that? Many of us have been trying to analyze for many years: why this personal hatred of George Bush on the part of entertainers and others when they don’t even know him. It’s one thing to disagree with somebody’s policies and so forth, but the personal hatred is just difficult to understand, unless you understand the root of it.
I think I do, and I think it has to do with faith. I think they’re scared of Bush. I think so many people who don’t believe in God have basically a guilt trip about that — not all, but some do — and whenever they are confronted with someone who doesn’t have such doubts but has a firm belief in God, I think they’re threatened immediately. If they then think that a person who has a firm belief in God is using any aspect of that faith as part of a foundation for governing, the way a personal life is lived, I think it’s threatening. There are probably a lot of other psychological factors rooted in this because it’s quite abnormal to personally hate somebody you don’t know. Yet there’s quite a lot of it on the left, and I think as I’ve mentioned to you before, global warming is a religion. It’s not a scientific movement. It’s not a moral movement as Gore wanted to point out.
It’s a pure religion, and as I think Chesterton said, “If you don’t believe in God, you’ll believe in anything,” and people who do believe in God and people who have no problem publicly proclaiming their faith are a huge, huge threat, both psychologically and emotionally to people who don’t share that faith or have any faith at all — other than in inanimate objects like elements of the earth or what have you. I think with Romney, the fact that Mormonism is not understood by people, it’s considered to be a cult, a weirdo sect. It’s considered, by people who don’t know about it, to be very, very serious and devout, and it’s the devout aspect that just sends the left quivering and shaking. We cannot have somebody who’s going to be judgmental, can’t have somebody who has absolutes of right and wrong and good or bad. We can’t have somebody like that running the country. No, no, no. That’s why the left feels like they are imprisoned when such people have positions of power.
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RUSH: Ed in Allentown, Pennsylvania, nice to have you on the EIB Network.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. How you doing?
RUSH: Just fine, sir.
CALLER: Not to belabor the point, but on the Mitt Romney thing, I just want to point out to you, last month’s issue of the AARP magazine had a little survey in it right at the beginning of the book. It was entitled, “Is America ready for…?” It was the Obama thing. Is America ready for Obama? Of course the response was yes, and then the next question was, “Is America ready for a woman president?” Then, of course, overwhelming response was yes. But what really appalled me, was the third question: “Is America ready for a Mormon president?”
RUSH: Well, let me ask you this. Dingy Harry is a Mormon. He is. Dingy Harry is a Mormon from Utah. If Dingy Harry were running for president, do you think we’d see stories about polygamy in his background or in the Mormon church at all? Do you think the same Drive-Bys would be trying to destroy Dingy Harry were he running for president?
CALLER: Oh, I doubt it. I wouldn’t be surprised if AARP contributes to Dingy Harry.
RUSH: Oh, that’s probably true. Anyway, look, there is no question there’s a lot of controversy and fear over Mormons, and so forth in this country, but to run a hit piece? The fact that his grandfather or great-grandfather were polygamist is no bearing on him. He’s not led his life that way at all. This is a pure hit piece. It’s not based on his Mormonism. It’s happening because he’s conservative.