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Friday, May 11, 2007 12:00 AM

What did Al Sharpton really mean?

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  • Sunday, May 13, 2007 10:11 PM

    In Context

    In context, Al Sharpton did attack the Mormon faith. It is quite simple:

    1. Hitchens points out how the Mormon faith officially believed in racial segregation up until fairly recently. Romney is a member of that faith. Hitchen said nothing about Romney specifically.

    2. Sharpton says "don't worry about that, people who believe in God will defeat him anyway". Since nothing was asserted about Romney specifically other than his connection to the Mormon faith, then Sharpton is attacking Mormons.

    However, I think if we get beyond words we will look at who Sharpton is and who Romney is we will see that Sharpton had forgotten exactly how Hitchens had framed it and was thinking of Romney merely as a Republican who he has problems with. An easy mistake to make, and of course the MSM is jumping on it. I haven't seen any coverage, but I imagine they haven't covered Hitchen's arguments very well, or that it has really spawned any debates on the existence of God. They don't want to touch that for fear of offending the religious, and because those who assert the existence of "God" will always lose.

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